YouSendIt Inc has acquired Found Software, an app firm that makes it easy to search for files and documents across your Mac and cloud services on one simple search platform.
The acquisition will help YouSendIt, which enables IT users to send and store large amounts of data, to make content that exists in different platforms easily accessible and shareable.
YouSendIt will be able to provide users with the ability to search data across email, desktops and cloud services, as well as 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 realise an exciting vision where users can access and manage the information they’re looking for, no matter where it’s stored.”
Established in 2004 before the term cloud computing was hijacked by the IT industry, YouSendIt now serves 40m registered users across 193 countries and 98pc of the Fortune 500.
Found Software is a US-based software company co-founded by Stephen Brady, Vijay Sundaram and John Mitchell in 2010.
The company lets users search for documents and files across Mac computers, as well as well known cloud platforms, such as Dropbox, SkyDrive, Evernote, Google Drive and Gmail, and drag and drop files into folders on the respective platforms and into emails.
Think cloud-nostic
The acquisition addresses the challenges users face – despite the rise of cloud, apps and smart devices – in terms of finding and making use of cloud data.
The problem is exacerbated by aging file sync and enterprise content systems built on file and document-centric architectures.
“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.”
Forrester Research, Inc, vice-president and principal analyst, Rob Koplowitz, wrote 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, 42pc of information workers spend more than an hour a day just searching for information. Highly paid roles like executive (46pc), engineering (48pc), and finance professionals (45pc) 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,” Koplowitz said.
