Kubi Software Ships Kubi Client; Delivers on the Promise of CollaborationMore Than 300 Organizations Participate in Collaborative Email Beta Program; Ease of Use Makes Collaboration More Effective Than Ever Before LINCOLN, Mass., April 22, 2003 -- Kubi Software today announced the general availability of its highly anticipated first offering, Kubi Client. The first ever Collaborative Email solution, Kubi Client provides structured team spaces for individuals and teams to collaborate spontaneously and securely, within familiar Microsoft(R) Outlook(R) or IBM Lotus Notes Email clients. It combines the power of collaborative software with the familiarity and ease of use of Email. With Kubi Client, Kubi Software has eliminated the traditional barriers to both collaboration and rapid product adoption, by putting robust collaborative capabilities in the hands of end-users. The product's ease of installation and use, ubiquity, and innovative licensing policy enable business users to quickly experience the power and simplicity of this new approach to collaboration. Anyone can be invited to, and participate in, a Kubi Space. When they download Kubi Client -- which takes only minutes -- team members can quickly and seamlessly collaborate without training or IT support, thus gaining firsthand experience of Kubi Client's benefits and facilitating its widespread acceptance. Also announced today was the overwhelming success of the Kubi Software Beta program, with more than 300 organizations evaluating Kubi Client, including 11 of the Fortune 100 companies. In the 60 days since Kubi Client was introduced at the prestigious DEMO 2003 conference -- where Kubi Software won the coveted DEMOgod(TM) award -- Kubi Client has dramatically improved the work of teams on projects, within and between organizations of all sizes and sectors. "The promise of collaborative software has been well understood for some time," said Shabbir Safdar, CTO of Mindshare Internet Campaigns LLC. "But the benefits of more effective collaboration don't become real unless the collaborative capabilities are simple, intuitive, and within the reach of all our people and their external partners. Kubi Client has delivered on that promise, by making it easy and attractive for all of our team members -- both within and outside the company -- to use powerful collaborative tools, in a familiar environment." Email is the preferred method to collaborate by business users today. As much as 90 to 95 percent of all collaboration occurs in Email, according to market research firm IDC. Email is well suited to sending messages and attaching files, but lacks context, structure, a shared space for project work, consolidated views of project data, and security, all of which are essential for individuals and teams to be able to work together. Kubi Client is the first solution to deliver on the promise of collaboration, by enabling business users to share discussions, documents, contacts, task lists, and team folders, all within Email. "We are extremely pleased with the strong response to our Beta program, and look forward to the rapid adoption of Kubi Client," said Julio Estrada, founder and CEO of Kubi Software. "Our vision of a user-centric approach that would enable business users to easily collaborate within their existing Email clients has been validated. Kubi's patent-pending technology is solving an important business challenge, with a platform-agnostic solution that drives spontaneous and secure collaboration." Kubi Software's innovation includes its user-centric approach to the application interface and its baseline protocol technologies. The company's patent-pending protocol is SMTP-based, enabling it to cross firewalls and leverage the worldwide messaging network, and XML-formatted, to unify the differences between competing Email platforms. For the first time, users of Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes -- who represent more than 90 percent of the business Email market -- can collaborate with each other, enabling individuals to work with external partners as well as internal teams. Ubiquitous Availability to Drive Widespread Adoption For a limited time, Kubi Software is offering a 30-day trial version of the fully functional Kubi Client. Evaluating Kubi Client is as simple as going to the Kubi Software Website, http://www.kubisoftware.com, and downloading the software. It's also easy to share the Kubi Client experience with others. Licensed Kubi Client users can invite anyone to participate in Kubi Spaces on a guest basis, at no additional cost. Invited participants can download Kubi Client, and fully participate in any team projects to which they are invited. Once guests and evaluators realize the value of Kubi, they can purchase Kubi Client to enjoy the full functionality of the product. Pricing for Kubi Client, which is now available for purchase at http://www.kubisoftware.com, starts at $149 for a single-user license. Five-pack, 25-pack, and enterprise licenses are also available, at discounted pricing. Kubi Software's sales team is supporting larger deployments. Maintenance and support plans provide access to Kubi's world-class technical support team, added services in the customer-only section of the Website, and all new releases and updates to Kubi Client. System Requirements Kubi Client works with Microsoft Outlook 2000 or 2002, or IBM Lotus Notes R5 or R6. It requires Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows 98; Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0.3313 or higher; and an Email account on a Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or POP3 mail server. In the third quarter of 2003, Kubi Software will offer Kubi Server, which will enable organizations to centralize storage of multiple team spaces, provide Web access, deliver enterprise scalability, create access to back- office applications, and administer centralized collaboration policies for all Kubi users. About Kubi Software Kubi Software was founded in 2001 to create a new class of business software called Collaborative Email that enables employees, customers, and partners to collaborate easily and securely. Collaborative Email combines the power of collaboration with the familiarity and ease of use of Email. Founder and CEO Julio Estrada has extensive experience in developing commercially successful software, including chief-architect roles for Lotus QuickPlace and Lotus Domino Web Server -- collaboration solutions used today by tens of millions of users. Kubi Software's world-class executive team brings management expertise from enterprise software companies, while its blue-chip investors include Lazard Technology Partners and Venture Investment Management Company LLC (VIMAC). Contact Kubi Software at http://www.kubisoftware.com or 781- 259-7900. All trademarks are the property of their respective companies.
Contacts:
Michael Blaber Barbara Ewen
Kubi Software Inc. CHEN PR, Inc.
781-259-7900, ext. 116 781-466-8282, ext. 14
mblaber@kubisoftware.com bewen@chenpr.com
SOURCE Kubi Software Web Site: http://www.kubisoftware.com |