Tag: Cloudon »

CloudOn has introduced version 2.0 of their document viewing and editing service, adding several key new features. First, Box has been added as a cloud storage service alongside Dropbox, with plans to add more services in the future, according to CEO Milind Gadekar when I spoke with him about the update recently. Box support should come as a boon to business users looking to take advantage of CloudOn, as according to Chris Yeh, Vice President of Platform at Box, "Over 120,000 businesses and 82% of the Fortune 500 use Box to store, manage and access their business content."

The other major feature of CloudOn 2.0 is Adobe Reader support for PDFs and any other files that support their viewer, including Photoshop files, and images. The PDF viewer is more extensive than built-in support, including support for features like 3D modeling in PDFs that the iPad's built-in PDF viewer does not support. This goes along with improvements to streaming performance in the newer version, the ability to open attachments in CloudOn and email attachments directly from the app. Emails will display as being from the same address as the user's CloudOn account. The free update is available now.

When CloudOn launched, it was so popular that the service was up and down for several days.. This apparently was just based on usage from United States users, as CloudOn has now announced that their app is available in the UK.

This means that more users will get to use Microsoft Office applications like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel using CloudOn’s cloud computing technologies. As this is a cloud-based solution, there appears to be mild input lag when operating with the apps. Files still can be saved and loaded from Dropbox, although these require to be saved in Office formats; opening up plaintext or markdown formats in Word isn’t possible at the moment. This is all still available for the low, low cost of free as the service begins to roll out. For users looking for a new way to use their familiar Microsoft Office tools directly on their iPad, this is a very viable option.

Recently, a startup named CloudOn launched their eponymous app that offers users the ability to edit Microsoft Office files on their iPad. The app supported Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and Excel spreadsheets, all available through CloudOn's WorkSpace technology. As well, it supported Dropbox synchronization for uploading and editing files from the cloud-based storage service, and the ability to open attachments from the email client in the app directly. The app also launched for free, which compared to most apps with similar functionality was a steep discount.

Astute readers will notice the usage of past tense throughout the article so far. That's because a free app with the ability to use Microsoft Office on the iPad was apparently quite popular. The app launched on January 3rd, and was so initially popular that CloudOn had to pull the app from the App Store in order to meet demand. They're currently accepting invitations to get back in to the service when the app relaunches, though no date has been offered for when it will be back up for download. Until then, we'll have to suffer the tyranny of editing our Office documents on our computer, or with pricey paid apps!