Technics: Online applications: Found acquired by YouSendIt, a 'Cloud-nostic' platform

The item below is commercial hype, but I'm thinking it's a good kind of commercial info.  I've not been able to learn all the features and benefits of my app Found, but now I see another company has indeed found Found and acquired it.  The new-to-me company is YouSendIt which describes itself as 'Cloud-nostic' — which if you know anything about The Cloud of Unknowing is, if nothing else, a brilliant conceptual play on words.  For not completely rational reasons, I hope to continue exploring Found the application that introduced me to the Cloud-nostic platform, YouSendIt.  But then I do have to learn something about the online Cloud itself.  And the security questions that I see, here and there, it begs to be answered, a topic which is also a wee bit cloudy for me.

— Technowlb, refWrite Backpage technics newspotter, analyst, columnist

Found (January 15, 2013)

YouSendIt acquires 'Found', 

finds 'Cloud-nostic' Platform

Technology Enables Users To Easily Find, Access, and Use Their Data From Anywhere

Campbell, Calif. - YouSendIt, Inc., today announced the acquisition of Found Software, Inc., a US-based software company co-founded by Stephen Brady, Vijay Sundaram and John Mitchell, which enables users to instantly find and discover their files, documents, and data across devices and cloud services. With the acquisition, YouSendIt will gain powerful technology capabilities, enabling data from email to desktops to cloud services to be instantly accessible and manageable. Found also offers impressive mobile capabilities as increasing amounts of data flow through mobile devices.

“It’s very evident that we’re moving to a more cloud-nostic world. Our industry has placed a huge burden on users to manage their cloud data—effectively isolating it across a growing number of proprietary platforms,” said YouSendIt CEO, Brad Garlinghouse. “Found enables YouSendIt to realize an exciting vision where users can access and manage the information they’re looking for, no matter where it's stored.”

Cloud-nostic Future

Users today are constantly forced to navigate cloud and device boundaries to make use of their cloud data. Aging file sync and enterprise content management systems, built on file and document-centric architectures, move data around but do not solve the significant challenges of discovering information and collaborating across devices and cloud services as well as outside the firewall.

“The Found team has created an impressive platform that allows us to build smart applications on top of a user’s data whether it’s in the cloud, on their mobile device or on their laptop,” said Matte Scheinker, Chief Product Officer, YouSendIt. “We want to help our customers be the smartest people in the room by gathering insight and value from their files and data—rather than overcharge them for commodity space on servers in the cloud.”

The acquisition of Found enables YouSendIt to take search and discovery to a powerful new level, making content that exists in different platforms easily accessible and shareable, without requiring the user to hunt for information across these multiple clouds and devices. YouSendIt fundamentally embraces the idea of helping users access and manage their data regardless of platform—a cloud-nostic future.

According to Forrester Research, Inc., Vice President and Principal Analyst, Rob Koplowitz, in the November 2012 report, Mapping The Value of Social Business and Collaboration,“Information is hard to find. If the goal is to drive optimal business results, what is the cost of lack of access to information? The cost is twofold: First, knowledge workers spend valuable time looking for information. On average, 42% of information workers spend more than an hour a day just searching for information. Highly paid roles like executive (46%), engineering (48%), and finance professionals (45%) index above this average. Second, they make decisions based on access to the information they do find, which may or may not be the best information available. The cost lies in decisions that are made with incomplete or inaccurate information.”

“Our shared vision is to enable users to seamlessly work across cloud boundaries through search and discovery,” said Stephen Brady, Found CEO and co-founder. “None of the relevant players in this industry have clarity and foresight about this vision. We're thrilled about the passion, leadership, and entrepreneurial culture at YouSendIt as well as the opportunity to deliver on this fundamental promise for millions of users all over the world.”

About YouSendIt

Founded in 2004, YouSendIt was working in the cloud before the term was even coined. At first the service was a simple way to send the large attachments that email couldn’t process, but has since grown to become a robust suite of online file storage and management capabilities. Today, the company serves 38 million registered users across 193 countries and 98 percent of the Fortune 500. Aside from offering professionals an easy-to-use collaboration solution, YouSendIt’s renowned reliability, untouched data security and endless innovation make it the go-to solution for businesses, big and small.

Media Contact:

Kiersten Hollars
YouSendIt, Inc.
925-518-0822
kiersten.hollars@yousendit.com