This morning Symantec corp is launching their GoEverywhere beta product, an offering that they’re describing as;
a secure SaaS-based workspace that allows users to access their preferred third party web-based email, IM, office and other online applications from one central online location
The idea of GoEverywhere seems to be to simplify web application use for the Joe-average user, allowing single sign on to whatever web based applications or storage the user wants. Many of us who evangelise cloud computing have been concerned about the practicalities of using dozens of different web apps with different logons. GoEverywhere attempts to manage that difficulty.
Don Kleinschnitz, manager of GoEverywhere didn’t do start-ups any favors when he said that;
We’re simply giving you a windows to your Web applications that you can customise as you please GoEverywhere is obviously not the first WebTop, but it’s the first created by a large enterprise. All the others are from start-ups and people are afraid to use them
Ouch! Although he does have a bit of a point. Having said that, and notwithstanding the size of Symantec as an organisation, it is a little concerning (fat least for those who value continuity of supply over the “latest-greatest”) that there is no word on how GoEverywhere will be monetised – it’d be nice to so some detail around this before evangelising users onto the service.
It seems the Symantec crew had a read of a post I wrote a few months ago, calling for an aggregation of multiple applications in one location – go everywhere seems to be a nice start down that road.
The video below (alternative title – Cloud Computing 101?) gives an intro to the concept of GoEverywhere
And the next video gives a slightly more in-depth look at how to use the GoEverywhere service.
Initial thoughts;
- Nice use of tag clouds
- Nice that Symantec (despite suggesting their own products first) is opening the sandpit for others to come play in
- Nice integration of storage and applications
As with all thing web 2.0-ish, a good product is just the first part, it’ll be interesting to see how Symantec develop the business model for GoEverywhere.
Related posts:
- GoEverywhere: Symantec’s SAAS Workspace in the Cloud
- Symantec dabbles with cloud app aggregation; Launches beta of GoEverywhere
Ben,
Any idea how much storage space these guys are going to offer?
Krish – At the moment it’s set u as the portal to a bunch of oher services. As such it can be “home” to all the third party storage plays – syncplicity, sugarsync, box etc etc. Currently it supports box “out of the box”. Byut Symantec is planning on adding their own storage service in time – no word on size.
Hi Ben. Full disclosure here: I work for http://www.nomadesk.com, which offers easy and secure file sharing, wherever you are. I read your post on GoEverywhere with great interest and just wanted to add NomaDesk to the mix.
In fact, NomaDesk is geared towards the need of the “digital nomad”. We are convinced that the more data gets synchronized, the more likely it gets compromised. Therefore, NomaDesk includes an encrypted virtual drive that keeps your files securely available off-line and remote file shredding and IP-tracking with TheftGuard. Of course, we impose no limits on storage and bandwidth.
The current NomaDesk release 2.6 displays file states and indicate whether files are already in use by someone else. You are also able to add and review notes (i.e. meta-data). The Mac version is on its way.
I would appreciate your review.
Filip.
Filip – more than happy to review – flick me an email ben AT cloudave DOT com and we can discuss
Great post and thanks for the interest in our beta launch you can see my post on the subject at http://www.goeverywhere.com/welcome-to-new-users/. We will evolve the service based on user feedback, so please try it out and let us know what you think.
To answer a few of your questions… since we are currently in beta we have not determined the final go-to market pricing. We are going to focus on getting the utility of the service to be the best we can as we finalize the subscription pricing. Also, we currently do not offer Symantec storage, but it is on our roadmap. The quantity has not be determined at this date, but we will let you know when it’s available on our blog at http://www.goeverywhere.com/blog/.
I am excited to finally be part of the cloud conversation, don’t hesitate to get in contact with me directly. I am always interested in your views on all things cloud computing.
– Don Kleinschnitz, VP & GM Symantec GoEverywhere