The news that Google is buying DocVerse is now official.
The reasons why Google bought this small company can be learned by taking a look at the people who started this small company out of Seattle.
Shan Sinha and Alex DeNeui worked at Microsoft before launching DocVerse in 2007.
Sinha ran product strategy for Sharepoint and SQL, 1.6B and $3.0B products, respectively. DeNeui served as program manager on the SQL Server Strategy Team and the program manager for the WinFS ISV Team.
The two have built a strong company that will help Google in its battle with Microsoft. Sinha and DeNeui know Microsoft products. They know the Microsoft processes and its culture.
DocVerse understands the challenges of working on deeply collaborative technologies. That’s a goal for Google as it continues to develop Google Apps. The DocVerse application installs a lightweight plug-in that is installed in the background of the user’s machine.
The plug-in opens a widget in the document sidebar that includes a unique link. Any time a user makes an update to a Microsoft docment, the plug-in syncs the web page that is associated with the document. Every modification gets synced. When multiple people work on a document, the updates are made through the plug-in and versions are stored online.
Syncing will become increasingly important for companies as more of the workforce uses smartphones. Google does a good job with email synchronization. But enterprise collaboration tools have a higher level of complexity. Co-editing, for instance, has to carry from the PC to the mobile device among mulitple users.
Interestingly, Jive Software uses the DocVerse functionality for their product add-on: Jive Connects for Microsoft Office.
The competition is getting fierce in the enterprise space. We wonder how this competition will affect the DocVerse relationship with Jive.
