Today, Citrix
announced
the availability of Podio
Chat, including instant
messaging (available now), as well as video
and audio chat, planned for release this summer. Designed for the
increasingly mobile and dispersed, modern team, Podio
Chat enables ad hoc conversations with the right people to flourish,
whenever discussion needs to happen – so teams can respond quicker and
make decisions even faster. With the addition of one-to-one and group instant
messaging (IM), as well as one-to-one video
and audio chat, Podio
now makes it even easier for teams to instantly
connect and get the context they need on projects,
tasks,
business
processes and everyday workflow outside of an organized meeting
setting. Watch the video
tutorial of Podio Chat to see how it works.
“Any effective team will tell you that the key to success is having open
and accessible communications, whether it be in a physical office,
face-to-face on a GoToMeeting with HDFaces session, an audio call,
through live comments on Podio or via instant messaging,” said Bernardo
de Albergaria, VP & GM, SaaS Products and Markets at Citrix. “Podio
Chat bridges the gap between ‘real time’ and ‘my time,’ increasing
the velocity of communications within Podio and making purposeful
collaboration happen faster and more effectively – no more waiting for
answers.”
Today, Citrix Podio
also became the first collaboration service of its kind to provide IM
and video chat “in context,” giving more meaning to ad hoc
conversations as they happen around projects, tasks and business
processes. Unlike standard IM tools, Podio
Chat gives teams the ability to see which contacts are online,
across the entire company ecosystem, whether it be internal employees or
external contractors, suppliers or partners working with a team in a Podio
workspace. Teams can now ask questions, share updates or discuss a
project in real time and, ultimately, work together more effectively on
their tasks. Podio
also gives teams the option of using video chat for easy, unplanned and
ad hoc 1:1, face-to-face discussions, as well as setting up regular,
recurring and more planned team video conferencing using GoToMeeting
with HDFaces.
“The real value of IM and video chat is when it’s used in the context of
the work in progress – the tasks, projects and deliverables in action
that require discussion to get done,” said Tommy Ahlers, VP of social
collaboration at Citrix. “With Podio Chat, teams can experience
seamless, fluid workflow, where questions get answered quickly because
the right people are online, available and focused on the same work at
the same time. The immediacy of in-context Podio Chat dramatically
improves team efficiencies, not only by providing a central hub for
communication, but also by retaining the rich history of information
exchanged between team members, so nothing gets lost.”
Key Benefits:
-
Get quick responses and make decisions faster by connecting your whole
company and/or team. Podio Chat lets team members see who’s online and
available to chat – including displaying time zone information –
granting immediate access to people in users’ core teams as well as
coworkers across the wider organization, helping to ease business
silos and connecting dispersed teams like never before.
-
Unify communications on Podio by enabling teams to communicate in a
variety of different ways to get work done, all without email or
third-party communication tools. Users can instant message one-on-one
or in a group, use audio-only chat for quick discussions, hold
one-to-one ad-hoc video meetings as needed, comment and “like” status
messages, tasks and projects. To stop receiving IMs, users can simply
close the chat pane and messages will divert to the Podio inbox.
-
Power mobile workstyles and enable dispersed teams to chat from any
iOS or Android device, anywhere, anytime, with Podio’s mobile apps for Android,
iPhone
and iPad.
Switch between computers and mobile devices with ease, continue chat
sessions on the go and never miss the chance to connect with a
teammate.
-
Retain information, discussion history and ideas while easing the pain
of having “too many tools” for collaboration. Use Podio Chat instead
of email and third-party chat services, save conversations, files and
decisions in one place and make use of message search to surface
information you need, whenever you need it.
-
Share files seamlessly and instantly as needed from all
Podio-connected file-sharing services, including: Sharefile, Google
Drive, Sugarsync, Dropbox, Box, Microsoft SkyDrive, UbuntoOne and
YouSendIt.
The Podio social business platform brings collaboration and business
processes together through Podio workspaces and
Podio apps
– more powerful, collaborative and social alternative to spreadsheets,
email and software point solutions. Podio apps can be found in the Podio
App Market and customized by any team using the simple drag-and-drop Podio
App Builder, a unique tool that enables anyone to create custom
business apps for their work – whether it’s managing sales,
CRM
or IT; interfacing with clients or partners; planning a conference;
coordinating email marketing; or receiving customer feedback. No
technical skills or IT support is needed to create a Podio app – anyone
can set one up in minutes. To see it in action, sign up for a Podio
demo.
Additional Quotes:
“Podio has become the communication hub for our business, keeping our
teams in New York and Copenhagen connected and agile,” said Charlotte
Vangsgaard, ReD Associates. “Now with real-time chat in Podio, it just
makes it that much simpler to stay in sync on projects and deadlines,
without having to resort to email or a variety of different IM clients.
It’s simple to use but has had a big impact on how we work.”
“Podio Chat with video has extended the Podio experience for our
50-person eCommerce group. We've cut down on formal meetings and
switched to more ad hoc check-ins. Our dispersed teams feel better
connected as a result. We've been able to include key internal clients
in the collaboration effort as well,” said Rob Roy, VP eCommerce and
Interactive Marketing of Time Warner Cable. “And, because you can
actually see when someone else is looking at the same deliverable you
are, it's so easy to just quickly discuss any loose ends.”
“Workers will ultimately choose the most appropriate combination of
tools, such as conferencing, instant messaging and activity streams to
perform daily tasks and get work done,” said Vanessa Thompson, research
manager for IDC’s Enterprise Social Networks & Collaborative
Technologies program. “Podio Chat provides a sophisticated multi-modal
collaboration and communication experience, through the convergence of
IM, video and audio but also offers the same basic functionality found
in easy-to-use software-based consumer communication tools.”
“Despite the huge investment in enterprise collaboration solutions,
siloed information management systems and stilted collaboration
practices are still having a negative impact on the productivity,
creativity and overall business agility of organizations,” said Richard
Edwards, Principal Analyst, Ovum IT. “Citrix Podio helps teams share
their knowledge, know-how and experiences in a range of interconnected
social ways and the introduction of Podio Chat rounds out this
experience, delivering a transformative opportunity for businesses and
institutions to do things differently.”
Related Links
-
Video: Learn more about Podio
Chat
-
Video: Watch a tutorial of Podio
Chat
-
Video: Podio cofounder Jon Froda introduces Podio
Chat
-
Blog: Real
Work in Real Time: Podio Chat, Out Now!
-
Blog: Let
the Live Show Begin with Real-Time Commenting
-
Blog: Make
the Most of Your Meetings: Upgraded Apps & GoToMeeting Integration!
-
Analyst Report: Ovum
Research; Enterprise
2020: Examining Citrix’s View of the Road Ahead for the Knowledge
Worker
-
Infographic: The
Business Value of Face-to-Face Conversation
Follow Us Online
-
www.podio.com,
www.citrixonline.com
-
Twitter: @Podio
-
Facebook: Podio
on Facebook
-
Workshifting blog: http://workshifting.com
About Citrix
Citrix (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the cloud company that enables
mobile workstyles—empowering people to work and collaborate from
anywhere, securely accessing apps and data on any of the latest devices,
as easily as they would in their own office. Citrix solutions help IT
and service providers build clouds, leveraging virtualization and
networking technologies to deliver high-performance, elastic and
cost-effective cloud services. With market-leading solutions for
mobility, desktop virtualization, cloud networking, cloud platforms,
collaboration and data sharing, Citrix helps organizations of all
sizes achieve the speed and agility necessary to succeed in a mobile and
dynamic world. Citrix products are in use at more than
260,000 organizations and by over 100 million users globally. Annual
revenue in 2012 was $2.59 billion. Learn more at www.citrix.com.
For Citrix Investors
This release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant
to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of
1933 and of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The
forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees
of future performance. Those statements involve a number of factors that
could cause actual results to differ materially, including risks
associated with the impact of the global economy and uncertainty in the
IT spending environment, revenue growth and recognition of revenue,
products and services, their development and distribution, product
demand and pipeline, economic and competitive factors, the Company’s key
strategic relationships, acquisition and related integration risks as
well as other risks detailed in the Company’s filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. Citrix assumes no obligation to
update any forward-looking information contained in this press release
or with respect to the announcements described herein.
The development, release, timing and combination of any features or
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