Central Desktop provides on-line community for departments, vendors and partners.
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When Isaac Garcia, CEO of Central Desktop, talks to a potential new customer, the first question he asks is: “How do you share information?” The answer is typically: e-mail, or, for engineering teams downloading CAD files, an FTP server. Then, he drills down into the inefficiencies of the setup, countering, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a secure online community to collaborate with departments, vendors, and partners?” Well, sure. But, not everybody can afford Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration platform, including, it seems, Microsoft itself.
The idea for Central Desktop, a collaboration tool delivered in a software-as-a-service model and based on Web 2.0 technology, was born out of an experience Garcia had while working at CNET Networks on a deal with Microsoft. The Redmond, WA, group, he recalls, passed around a USB key to share files and e-mailed everything back and forth after the meeting. “I remember asking why they were not using SharePoint, and their answer was, ‘We don’t have the resources.’ ”
Garcia noted that CNET also had information-sharing issues. At that moment, it all coalesced. “We all buy into this dream that it is supposed to be easy to share information with people, but it is still so damn hard,” he says. “CNET couldn’t do it as a mid-sized, publicly traded company, and Microsoft couldn’t do it as a huge, cash-rich company that makes collaboration software, because they didn’t have the resources. We needed to make it easy for companies to collaborate.”
Soon thereafter, Garcia co-founded Central Desktop with Arnulf Hsu, the company’s CTO. This is the third venture for the duo; they sold two companies to CNET in 2002. The subscription-based software model provides a common workspace where people can communicate, share documents, collaborate on projects, and manage workflow. Features include a departmental calendar; a workflow engine to create rules for procedures and document management; an online database to store structured information, such as parts and location lists; and Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, community forums, and Web and phone conferencing.
At the core, it is a Wiki-based system — Web pages that anyone with authorization can edit without programming knowledge — coupled with the SaaS model, which makes the software affordable at about $10 per user per month. Garcia says it is a winning combination for collaboration.
Just ask Ashley Whitaker, sales and marketing coordinator for door manufacturer Eliason Corp., who manages Central Desktop internally. “I take care of it all,” she says. “I learned just by watching the videos. If I can do it, anybody can do it.”
