Adesso synchronization platform for all devices

Adesso Systems restarts around file synching , says C/Net. The truth is Adesso has always been about synchronization of files and application logic, across all platforms including wireless devices. The big change is in the business model and sales approach. CRN has a related story.

Rather than try to sell sophisticated software to corporate customers through a direct sales force, Adesso is counting on consumer usage to fuel sales within corporations, said Landry, formerly of IBM and Lotus.

"Rather than sell this software that can do anything you want, we're giving it to people to use and let them figure out the best applications," Landry explained.

Adesso's radical rethinking of its business operations, which left the company with only one sales person, reflects profound changes in the business software market.

Adesso Systems is applying a Web 2.0 style sales model to their sophisticated application development and synchronization platform. Consumer use is free, but commercial use carries a license fee. The new trend in software is to provide innovative products to "pro-sumers", professional consumers who will use the product at work and at home, and virally spread to their enterprise colleagues until it makes sense to have a commercial license and professional support.

Adesso is also making the platform available to developers to build hundreds of specialized applications. These applications will be hosted by Adesso and available for sale in an on-line marketplace called AppsNow. Adesso will split the revenue with the application developer. Adesso Systems has also built 24 sample applications that can be further modified for your specific use.

The idea is to attract hundreds of independent developers who have specialized domain experience to build innovative applications for "millions of markets of dozens of users". The true long tail of software. Adesso will build a marketplace to sell and support these applications so that small independent developers can make money from their creations.

Customers get very specific custom applications that solve a real problem. Developers get to sell their creations through Adesso's AppsNow marketplace. And, Adesso sells their platform to commercial users. It is a win/win/win situation.

Take a look at the AppsNow marketplace for some cool applications. There is one called NOW.tunes that will selectively synchronize iTunes, MP3s, WMAs and other music files between all of your PCs, PDAs and SmartPhones. Another called NOW.podcasts will let you enjoy your podcasts on-demand anytime, anywhere, on any device. Pretty cool.

John Landry, CEO and Phil Stanhope, VP technology, gave me a demo of several applications and some technology they have under development. The coolest thing I saw was a simple little utility they call Adesso Tubes. It is basically an icon on your desktop where you can drag and drop files. The Adesso Tube takes the file and distributes it to all your subscribed devices and to other people you allow to subscribe, and keeps it synchronized with future changes. This is distributed file synchronization across devices and groups with one click of the mouse.

Adesso has the technology in place. Now it is up to the marketplace and partner ecosystem to respond. This could be a big winner.

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