Huddle announces industry-first, 100 per cent adoption guarantee

Delivers record six month sales, new headquarters in London’s

technology hub

May 26, 2011 (Business Wire) — Huddle, the leader in enterprise cloud collaboration and content management, has unveiled an industry-first software adoption guarantee. The move means that IT buyers can now make the leap to cloud computing without the investment risk or concerns about low user adoption and satisfaction.

With SharePoint failing to gain popularity with enterprise users^[i], Huddle is offering a risk-free alternative to organizations worldwide. The Huddle Adoption Guarantee^[ii] pledges 100 per cent user adoption across the enterprise or your money back.

“Adoption is key to the success of a new technology deployment. However, with the rise of the consumerization of IT and high expectations from the user community, it’s not easily achievable for most,” said Alastair Mitchell, CEO, Huddle. “At Huddle, we’ve been consistently reaching one of the highest adoption rates in the industry. Today, we’re putting our money where our mouth is and guarantee that our software will be a safe investment for any CIO or CTO considering deploying or upgrading their collaboration and content management systems.”

“Customers who have deployed Huddle to replace or work alongside SharePoint tell us that Huddle’s adoption rate is three times higher than Microsoft’s product^[iii],” Mitchell continued. “It is a win-win situation for the IT department and users. IT can deploy technology that their community will love using, safe in the knowledge that it enables secure access to content across the firewall to customers, partners and suppliers. Users finally get an easy-to-use tool that helps them to get a job done. Unlike SharePoint, Huddle offers mobile access, simple external collaboration and deployment within hours – all at 10 per cent of SharePoint’s total cost of ownership.^[iv]”

Record six month sales

Huddle has just closed another record sales quarter, with sales tripling in the last six months alone and the close of its first multi-million pound enterprise deal. The company’s average deal size also grew by more than 30 per cent as a result of increasing demand from corporate customers. Huddle’s global customer list now includes Disney, NASA, Discovery Chicago, Ogilvy, ESPN, HTC, AKQA, Pearson, Merck Serono, Sodexo, Kia Motors and Microsoft.

Huddle in the government

Already providing its collaboration and content management service to more than 60 per cent of UK central government departments, Huddle has continued its expansion into the public sector. Under the terms of a new agreement with UK government, announced in April 2010, Huddle became the first cloud supplier to recognize government as a single ICT customer, in an effort to reduce costs and deliver increased value for money. In addition, a recent analyst report^[v] recognizes that Huddle can displace SharePoint in government.

Public sector customers include Defra, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, NHS East of England, NHS South West and Cheltenham Borough Council.

In addition, Huddle has just closed its first significant U.S. government deal and will be rolling out its service to this sector more widely over the next 12 months.

Global growth and new headquarters

With the team expected to grow by 30 per cent this year, Huddle is moving its European headquarters to Silicon Roundabout in London. This larger office at the centre of London’s technology scene will accommodate Huddle’s growing sales, customer engagement and development teams.

Following the relocation of Andy McLoughlin, EVP Strategy, Huddle, to San Francisco last year, Huddle continues to build its on-the-ground support and customer engagement teams. The U.S. sales team is expected to increase in size by 40 per cent.

With 44 per cent of Huddle customers based in EMEA, including Belgian FPS Social Security and NPO Netherlands, the company has also begun expanding its sales team to actively target the private and public sector in the DACH region, Benelux, France, Italy and Spain.

About Huddle

Established in 2006, Huddle is the leader in cloud collaboration and content management for the enterprise. Huddle is used by more than 85,000 organizations worldwide, including Disney, AKQA, HTC and Kia Motors, to securely manage projects, share files and collaborate with people inside and outside of their business.

Huddle can be accessed online, on desktops via Microsoft Office applications, on the move with BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad apps and on social networks: LinkedIn, Ning and XING. It is currently available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese.

Headquartered in London with a San Francisco office, Huddle has recently been named the best enterprise tech start-up in Europe in the Daily Telegraph’s Tech Start-up 100 Awards.

More information can be found at http://www.huddle.com/

^[i] According to a recent report, 86 per cent of SharePoint users prefer to use email over SharePoint for collaboration on documents; “How are businesses using Microsoft SharePoint in the enterprise”, Global 360 report, April, 2011.

^[ii] Huddle Adoption Guarantee guarantees that within 90 days 100 per cent of your initial user groups will be trained and using Huddle actively – or the organization will refund a full three months subscription value. More information can be found at http://www.huddle.com/adoption-guarantee (live on 26 May, 2011)

^[iii] Huddle customer research shows that average user adoption of Huddle is 90 per cent within the first three months of roll-out to a community, compared to 32 per cent for SharePoint; November 2010.

^[iv] “Will Huddle displace SharePoint in the UK government”, TechMarketView, May 2011.

^[v] “Will Huddle displace SharePoint in the UK government”, TechMarketView, May 2011.

Huddle
Lucy Wimmer, +44(0)20 3411 2271
Head of Corporate
Communications
lucy@huddle.com