Today we announced the availability of our new Mobile Data Management suite. As a person who has been notified on two different occasions from two different organizations that a laptop with my personal information was lost/stolen, I’m really excited about this new feature set. In both of my cases, each organization provided me with credit monitoring services and credit reports, which was expensive for them, and really a headache for me. These incidents happened in the era where laptops were considered “mobile devices.” The proliferation of smart phones, tablets, laptops, etc. now compound that exposure due to the sheer number of devices that can access and synch files.

An increasingly large number of employees are bringing their own devices into the corporate environment and want to use these devices to work from wherever they are. Included in this Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model is the trend of organizations providing employees with stipends to purchase their own computer and bring that computer into the office environment.

Many employees now use three screens (phone, tablet, and computer) and at least two of those devices are often employee owned and managed. This is very different than the old model where the company owned and managed the entire computer while the employee might have some personal apps or data on that device.

These trends are causing a radical shift in how organizations approach device management. PC management tools were developed to manage the entire PC. MDM tools were designed to manage the entire mobile device. BYOD turns these two models upside down.

It’s now coming down to the company managing and securing the corporate “stuff” on the device of choice instead of managing the entire device. In this new management model, companies are concerned with securing the corporate files on the devices, ensuring employees have the right apps, and making sure that only the correct employee/device can access company assets.

And let’s be honest — files are what companies really worry about. Applications really exist to manipulate data or files, whether they’re within an app (Salesforce, SAP, etc.) or outside the app (Word, PPT, Excel, etc.). And more and more of these files are being delivered as native apps via app stores. And if a device is lost or stolen, a company wants to ensure that the corporate files and data are encrypted and can be remotely wiped from the device.

The Egnyte Mobile Data Management Suite enables our customers to encrypt and remotely wipe data on devices natively as part of their Egnyte file sharing and sync solution. While we certainly integrate with MDM for customers who want to use Egnyte in conjunction with their MDM solution, we have many customers who just want to make sure the corporate data is secure and can be removed in the event of a lost or stolen device. Securing access by offering two-step authentication and certificate-based device access further enhances the security of the files by making sure that only the right users with secure devices can access the files in the first place.

All of these features can be configured and managed in a device control panel that provides a single view of all end user devices connected to the company’s account. Administrators can view information about the user, device type, last time of access etc. and can take corrective actions such as disconnecting or wiping a device from the control panel in the event the device is compromised. Users can even view their own devices, allowing for self-service when needed.

BYOD, mobile device access, and consumer file sharing solutions will continue to cause companies to rethink their device management strategy and security policies. Our new Mobile Data Management Suite provides customers with all the tools they need to manage mobile and laptop data security and access, or can work in conjunction with device management tools to manage the full spectrum of applications and data.

Earlier this week, we announced the acquisition of Polish startup Bema Sp. z oo.  It’s a good day when one startup has enough momentum – and capital – to buy another.  It’s an even better day when that acquisition can offer immediate benefits, and that’s the case here. As Egnyte Poland, this new location will enable us to broaden support for our one million customers worldwide and further expand our solution.  It will also provide a great base for us to reach into new markets.

Bema has provided advanced research & development capabilities for our solutions and this acquisition brings these valuable capabilities in-house.  Our plan is to quadruple the team over the next year, taking advantage of the rapidly expanding IT talent pool in Poland. With a population of over 38 million, Poland is the sixth largest economy in Europe and, according to the latest TopCoder ranking list has some of the best programmers in the world – the country is third, just behind Russia and China.

We’re pretty excited about this week’s news and look forward to telling you more about the new team – and their accomplishments – in coming months.  In the meantime, stay tuned for more great news coming from us later this month!

Yesterday we sent out a press release highlighting our momentum in two industries. 1,500 construction/engineering customers and 1,000 advertising/media customers are a proof-point of the value of a hybrid approach to file sharing. While most industries are adopting file sharing, these two industries are interesting as they share common needs where cloud-only file sharing solutions fall apart. Both industries have large files sizes that are getting bigger every year. Not only do these industries have to collaborate on these files across geographically separate offices, but they also require a solution that lets them do so securely with both their clients and partners.

A hybrid approach to file sharing includes the use of both local storage and cloud storage. Local storage provides the fastest access speed possible, does not clog the connection to the Internet, and provides business continuity in case of Internet outage. Cloud provides accessibility to remote employees, business partners, and clients. What’s most interesting is that combining local storage plus cloud is not just additive, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts – especially when it comes to construction/engineering and advertising/media companies.

Having local storage in two office locations with the cloud in between enables teams in those geographically separated offices to work as though they are in the same room. Each team has fast local access to the local storage in their office while the cloud quickly and efficiently synchronizes project changes between the geographically separated local storage devices. It’s like having a 3000 mile LAN. Large media and engineering files further highlight the requirement for hybrid as cloud-only solutions simply cannot provide the performance these teams need to collaborate effectively on projects.

I may be dating myself, but this reminds me of a Reese’s commercial where a person with peanut butter ran into a person with chocolate. They discovered that the combination of peanut butter and chocolate was much better than peanut butter or chocolate separately. This is the same phenomenon that happens when you combine local storage and cloud in file sharing.

Today, we are introducing Egnyte WebEdit to enable you to open any file stored in Egnyte directly from a browser, edit in the appropriate application (word/excel/powerpoint/keynote/adobe cs6/autocad etc) and simply save it back. You do not have to go through a multi-step process of download, edit, save and upload anymore.

The application is ideal for users who do not want to load Egnyte Map Drive or Personal Local Cloud (Desktop Sync) on their computer, and is more convenient than downloading, editing, saving and uploading the saved version back to the cloud.  Egnyte WebEdit is available to Administrators and Power Users.

This application is available as a pre-beta product. If you are interested in WebEdit, please contact us so we can enable this for your account. We welcome your feedback.

When I first started Egnyte around 5 years ago, I visualized what success would look like, and while our journey is far from done, I am pretty proud of our team and what we’ve managed to accomplish so far. A stellar group of investors, $33 Million raised, 3.5x growth in booking from 2011 to 2012, and the release of a series of great product features and improvements. These are all things to be proud of, but there’s a lot more to do, and in support of our growth, and our focus on the enterprise we’ve brought on some serious talent to our board and executive staff.

Today’s announcement is yet another milestone in what looks to be another exciting year at Egnyte. First, I’d like to welcome Mike Klayko as the newest member of our board of directors. Mike has been a key player in silicon valley over the last 35 years and truly understands the needs of the enterprise. Most recently he was CEO of Brocade, and before that an exec at EMC, HP and IBM to name a few, he will help us solidify our place in today’s enterprise. Also announced today, Tom Reilly, former CEO of ArcSight and board member of Eloqua, will join our board of advisors. His deep understanding of sales and growth strategies is going to be extremely important as we take Egnyte through this next phase.

Last but not least, I’m thrilled to announce two additions to our executive leadership. Barry Phillips has joined Egnyte as the chief marketing officer, and Steve Sutter as chief financial officer. Both Barry and Steve bring significant executive experience, and deep understanding of what it takes to be a great enterprise software company. They have both built teams in high growth enterprise software companies, and have hit the ground running.

This is a great moment at Egnyte, and I’m so glad that I’m able to share some of my thoughts and feelings with you. I feel inspired and enthusiastic to tackle the rest of this year, and encourage you to keep watching our blog for new announcements on a regular basis.