Salesforce.com executive joins organization to drive enterprise growth
Huddle, the leader in enterprise cloud collaboration and content management, has strengthened its position as the global pioneer in the market with another record quarter. Due to increasing demand from large corporations and government, Huddle has seen sales triple in Q1 2011,* with sales to new enterprise customers increasing by almost five times, compared to the same period last year. The company has also announced the addition of Simon O’Kane, former Managing Director, UK and Ireland, at Salesforce.com, to the organization’s management team.
As Huddle’s VP Enterprise, Mr O’Kane will drive the company’s focus on enterprise and continue to build Huddle’s presence in large companies and government organizations worldwide. In his role at Salesforce.com, Mr O’Kane led the sales team and was responsible for increasing recurring revenues from £2.5 million to £80 million over five years.
“Having played a key role in building one of the pioneers in cloud computing, I am excited to be joining Huddle – undoubtedly Europe’s leading cloud computing company – and such a committed and passionate team,” said Simon O’Kane, VP Enterprise. “At Salesforce.com, I learnt the difference between true and false cloud computing. I was impressed with the fact that Huddle regularly exceeds its guaranteed 99.9 per cent service level agreement (SLA). Over the last 90 days alone, it has had 100 per cent uptime. When you consider that recent outages from other major cloud vendors left teams without access to documents for hours at a time, this is quite an achievement. In addition, Huddle releases updates to its service every four weeks with zero downtime and offers users a 100 per cent user adoption money back guarantee. The company’s recent landmark 10 year deal with UK government and continuing success with government organizations in Belgium, Italy, Spain and Finland is testament to the fact that this is an organization destined for greatness.
Mr O’Kane has also held senior sales positions at Broadvision, Banctec and Fujitsu.
“Simon’s addition further strengthens the already exceptional team we have built at Huddle,” said Alastair Mitchell, CEO, Huddle. “We’re extremely proud that Huddle continues to attract global talent. With Simon’s support and impressive industry knowledge, Huddle will continue to lead the disruption of the collaboration and content management space by providing organizations with a viable alternative to legacy systems, such as SharePoint, that both users and IT love. We are set to triple sales year-on-year, which is a clear indication of the huge demand for flexible, scalable and intuitive cloud collaboration services in the enterprise market. With Huddle, there are no hidden costs and our adoption guarantee ensures you get maximum ROI.”
Gartner reports that “team collaboration (is) a growing segment gaining in popularity from influences from social software and distributed virtual teams.” Figures from the analyst report reveal that “Software as a Service represents approximately 46 per cent of total market revenue in 2010.”**
“By YE14, cloud email and collaboration services, at 10 per cent penetration, will have passed the ‘tipping point’, with broad scale adoption under way,” writes Tom Austin, VP and Gartner Fellow, Gartner, in a recent report.*** “By 2020, growth in this market will begin to level off as it exceeds 55 per cent.”
Already boasting a customer list of globally recognized brands, including Disney, HTC and Kia Motors, Huddle has recently secured deals with Unilever, Diageo, M&C Saatchi and the Belgian Ministry of Health. In addition, the company recently joined forces with FCO Services to announce Huddle IL3, which will be accredited for pan-government collaboration on classified data. The partnership saw Huddle move into the highly valuable hybrid cloud market and revealed the company’s ability to provide government customers with high security access to private data stores for classified data.
With its 99.9 per cent SLA and enterprise-grade security measures already exceeding the requirements of government organizations and businesses worldwide, Huddle is now focusing on solving the challenges of collaboration in large enterprises. Over the coming months, Huddle will enhance its enterprise content management capabilities, usability, multi-platform and mobility offering.
Following the relocation of the company’s European headquarters to Silicon Roundabout, London, the Huddle team is now expected to grow by 60 per cent this year, exceeding original expectations. To accommodate increasing demand from US government, the organization is also looking to expand its U.S. presence, which currently consists of an office in San Francisco, and open offices on the East Coast.
* Huddle’s Q1 is May, June, July
** Gartner, Inc., Forecast: Software as a Service, Worldwide, 2010-2015, 1H11 Update, Sharon A. Mertz, et al, June 22, 2011
*** Gartner, Inc., The Cloud Email and Collaboration Services Market, 2011 Update, Tom Austin, August 19, 2011