Starting a new chapter

Two years ago we decided to bet the future of our young company in a device called the iPad so we worked hard to make it among the first wave of iPad only apps. SharePlus was released to the market April 2010, making it the first native iPad client app for SharePoint. Fortunately for us, the iPad turned out to be a success. Two years later SharePlus has more than half a million downloads worldwide, and is used in several Fortune 500 companies.

It’s been an amazing adventure, and today we are really happy to announce that we are starting a new exciting chapter in this journey, since SouthLabs has now officially become part of the Infragistics team.

Personally I know Infragistics from my SharePoint consulting & .NET developer days, way before starting SouthLabs. It’s a company I’ve respected and admired for a long time. I have personal friends who’ve been working there for years, and I know firsthand the level of technical skill and quality they put into the software they build. The fact that they have a very similar company culture as we have, with a passion for developing great software, and share our vision of the market opportunities for the mobile space were key to make this deal happen.

I believe for our customers this means very good news, because the investment on SharePlus will redouble, leveraging the expertise and resources of a world-class software products company. Infragistics has worldwide presence, with offices in: the US, UK, Bulgaria, India, Japan, and Uruguay.

Everyone in the SouthLabs team, including myself and Daniel, will remain as part of this new chapter so none of the expertise we’ve been able to build in the mobile space over the last three years will be lost in the integration process.

I look forward to this new chapter, to continue developing SharePlus and other mobile apps for the Enterprise space and to take good care of our customers; it’s been so far our pleasure.

An insight into SharePlus SharePoint Mobile Client v2.7

SharePlus Office Mobile Client, iOS v2.7 is out and about, so what's new? why should you upgrade?

Because...

Data Protection

Version 2.7 introduces one major modification, which is data protection. A major asset in security terms, since from v2.7 onwards all information stored locally is encrypted using the built-in hardware encryption that Apple recommends and uses, specially valuable for our Enterprise customers.

Sorting & Grouping

Now includes the ability to sort and group list contents dynamically, by tapping at the view settings icon, and selecting which fields to sort, or group by, and yes, you may sort and group by more than one field :)

Wifi Document Sharing

Turn on wifi sharing and enable your team mates to connect to your iOS device, and browse your local files using a regular web browser. File upload it´s also supported converting wifi sharing in a powerful collaboration mechanism with network users.
For security reasons this feature is disabled by default, and remains only enabled while the dialog stays open.

Picture Board

Browsing pictures with SharePlus has now been made easier, with a mosaic like thumbnail view of all the contents of a SharePoint's Picture library.

plus...

As usual with each update there's a set of minor improvements and bug fixes, in this case such as SharePoint 2010 external lists query support.

Stay tuned for our next update!

SharePlus Enterprise = Mobile SharePoint Enterprise ready

I've just published the following intro presentation about SharePlus. It's a very much needed update from it's former version, several things have changed since that version was published. SharePlus has grown to become the top ranking SharePoint mobile client app in the iTunes app store, we've the fortune of having Apple's endorsement, and it has become a multi platform SharePoint client with support for iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch), Macs, PlayBooks, and there's more to come. These slides introduce the product and the latest flavor in our offering, SharePlus Enterprise.

SharePlus comes in three flavors: Lite, Pro, and now Enterprise as well. So how do these three flavors differentiate themselves beyond features, spiritually, so to speak. Well, to begin with, the SharePlus Lite flavor is meant as an easy to obtain, free, get it from the app store version that allows someone to test the connection to the SharePoint server, and provide a testdrive of navigating the contents of a SharePoint server with a mobile native application. For some users, that do the content adding and managing bit from the server side, and are always connected, this is all they need, we have a lot of Lite active users, who use SharePlus on a daily basis, and that's fine.

The SharePlus Pro flavor on the other hand has the full range of features, it's meant to become a rich value adding companion to the SharePoint user with a mobility requirement, that needs to access data both online, and offline, and needs more than a read only view, he needs to get things done. Yet, typically the SharePlus Pro user is an individual, that's paid for the device out of his own pocket, and that's using SharePlus as a personal productivity enhancement initiative.

Then there's companies with large SharePoint invesments, who see value in mobile access to corporate assets, who've decided to adopt SharePlus company-wide and face a distinctive set of challenges when they attempt to configure, distribute in house, and manage a large set of devices with SharePlus internally.
Sometimes they need help and support with the deployment process, or an extra killer feature for our app to become the productivity boost they are looking for, and we can implement it as a customized version of our app within days or a few weeks, depending on the scope of the change requested.

Typically companies leverage this investment not only for SharePlus but for a set of productivity apps, within the context of an Enterprise app store initiative.

In some cases the governance part is the priority, others times the need to customize the look & feel of the app, because it will be used in client facing scenarios, and they want nothing but their brand to be displayed. It's for these cases that we've come up with SharePlus Enterprise.

We are very happy to say we have a growing number of customers who've already trusted us. SharePlus is a multi platform mobile app, with leading presence in iTunes app store, RIM's BlackBerry's app world, and very soon Android. Our licenses are cross device, and that provides an extra layer of confidence for our clients, since they don't feel they are getting married with one mobile platform.

Mobile SharePoint Enterprise ready

View more presentations from SouthLabs.

If you've tried SharePlus Pro, and feel SharePlus Enterprise may be the right thing for your company, don't hesitate to contact us at sales@southlabs.com.

RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook Enters The Tablet Wars, with SharePlus

We are very, very happy to announce that SharePlus our mobile client for SharePoint has been approved, and will be present next week, when the Playbook is finally launched.

Much has been said about RIM's BlackBerry upcoming tablet, the Playbook, some say it will launch without an email client, we know nothing about that. All we know is when the Playbook comes out, you will be able to connect to your SharePoint with it using SharePlus.

Operation ShareLove = Support NZ + Japan and win awesome prizes!

We are a global community, interconnected more now than ever before. When a disaster strikes even on the other side of the world, it affects us all. The SharePoint community has come together and created Operation ShareLove, an initiative designed to respond to natural disasters with an outpouring of financial support funneled through disaster relief agencies trained to get help where it is most needed.

SouthLabs is proud to support Operation ShareLove: New Zealand & Japan to help the victims of the recent earthquakes. If you'd like to be a part of this global initiative, all you have to do is donate to the charity of your choice in support of victims of these disasters. In addition to the feel good vibe you'll have from donating to an excellent cause, you'll also receive a FREE e-book voucher from O'Reilly Media. Once you've made your donation of $25 USD or more, email proof of your donation to sharelove@innovative-e.us to receive the voucher for your free e-book.

And there's more! When the fund drive is over, on April 15, 2011, all donors will be entered into a raffle for fantastic prizes worth over $50,000 , including SharePlus Pro licenses both retail and enterprise and much, much more! To see a full list of the raffle prizes and to read more about Operation ShareLove and how you can help, visit http://spgur.us/ShareLoveNZJP

Edit SharePoint data offline in your iPad with SharePlus

I'm working on a new series of videos to showcase SharePlus features in the iPad version. The following video features edit offline support, which is basically the ability to add, change, or remove contents in SharePoint lists (even documents), and then have them automatically synchronized back, when the app returns to a connected environment. Hope you find it useful.

SharePlus was present at SPTechCon San Francisco

As we had announced SouthLabs' team participated in SPTechCon San Francisco, the largest independant SharePoint technological conference, exhibiting SharePlus in all it's flavors.

Here are a couple of pics of our booth, including cybozu's ninja "visit".

I'd like to thank everyone that took the time to stop by our booth. We had a blast presenting SharePlus and visiting San Francisco which turned out to be such a beautiful city! I'm already looking forward to the next SPTechCon.