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Do your friends call you a “techno nomad” or a “21st century minimalist”? If all you need to run your legal practice is any web enabled device, than you’ve probably been labeled by one of these terms.
You see, in the 90s, the prevailing trend was bigger is better: bigger cars, bigger hamburgers, bigger houses and bigger technology. But with a downturn in the economy, more fuel conscience consumers and the rise cloud computing, consumers and businesses alike are learning how to do more with less, including their technology needs.
20 years ago, ok, probably only 5 years ago, if I were to have gotten with a group of 5 lawyers to start a firm, I would have bought servers, PCs, network stuff, probably some IT people to manage it all and a large investment in some large software package. Now compare that with what new firm Lumpkins Spiers PLC did when two attorneys broke off from a large practice to start their own earlier this year. All they needed was a scanner, laptops and an internet connection.
[Read the entire case study on how Lumpkins Spiers PLC uses web based technology to manage and run their law practice]
John Lumpkins, one of the partners, had been overseeing and managing technology for over twenty years when he joined with Sarah Spiers to form a new firm, and he knew that there was a more efficient way to run a practice. He envisioned a “legal practice 2.0” or a “law firm in the cloud.”
“Cloud Computing is a way to allow us to focus on what we do best instead of having to invest in or maintain a whole server system ourselves,” John said after deciding to employ an integrated solution of NetDocuments and AdvologixPM.
Though they are still a relatively new firm, John and Sarah have enjoyed the simplicity and ease of implementation that moving to the cloud has provided them.
To learn more about how Lumpkins Spiers has created a cloud based legal practice, read the entire case study here.
To continue the legal SaaS discussion, send a tweet to @NetDocuments and we’ll be sure to keep the conversation going.
August 19th, 2010 | Tags: Advologix, Attorney, integration, law firm, legal technology, practice management| Category: Advologix, SaaS, Technology, business continuity, collaboration, document, document management, legal technology, paperless | No Comments »
Has the world been rid of its cloud computing security concerns?
Probably not…but that day is getting closer. According to a few recent studies in a few technology conservative industries, people and businesses are becoming much more comfortable with storing and managing their data in the cloud.
Even the most technology risk-averse markets such as health care, finance and government are rapidly adopting, and even advocating, disruptive cloud technologies at an ever increasing rate.
SaaS virgins generally raise two initial fears when they consider moving to the cloud: who is in control of my data? And is it safe to store my data somewhere other than the office? Though these concerns are real and very important to understand, the immaculate perception that all my data must be stored under my roof is being changed.
In a recent article on InformationWeek.com, an expert from Accenture was quoted as saying, “Healthcare firms are beginning to realize that cloud providers actually may offer more robust security than is available in house.” That same story cited a recent study that stated that about a third of the health care industry already uses cloud apps and that over 70% of respondents plan to shift more and more to SaaS and cloud applications. These are very intriguing estimates in any field, but especially in health care where the regulatory and HIPAA compliance rules are so strict.
Similar shifts are being seen in the finance world. A recent study done by SIFMA stated how cloud computing is enabling the financial industry to push forward with technology even amidst budget restraints: “The [finance] industry is showing a larger appetite for disruptive technologies such as cloud computing to force business model change.”
Similar sentiments are being echoed even in the federal government where federal CIO Vivek Kundra has been touting cloud computing so adamantly that he almost makes Marc Benioff seem like cloud skeptic. “For far too long we’ve been thinking very much vertically and making sure things are separated,” he said.”Now we have an opportunity to lead with solutions that by nature encourage collaboration both horizontally and vertically.”
While cloud security is still a critical issue and something that must be taken extremely serious by all vendors, the mood is shifting towards general acceptance of security in the cloud.
John Soat summed things up nicely in his blog post on this very topic. “It’s not that security in the cloud isn’t still a concern for both [health care and finance] industries, but it’s a known, and perhaps better understood factor…So while security is still a legitimate concern, it doesn’t seem to be the show stopper it used to be…” So with your SaaS vendor taking care of you security concerns, you can now worry about where Lebron James will be playing basketball next year.
If you want to learn more about security in the cloud, check out our security fact sheet or hit NetDocuments or myself with a tweet at either @netdocuments or @dannymjohnson.
Post written by Danny Johnson of the NetDocuments sales and marketing team.
July 1st, 2010 | Tags: Cloud Computing, Federal Government, Health Care, HIPAA, SaaS, SEC| Category: Cloud Computing, SaaS, Technology, business continuity, document management | 2 Comments »
OREM, UTAH – June 2nd, 2010. NetDocuments, the leading global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content management provider, today announced that Quintec International  has become a primary UK Business Solutions Partner and Authorised Training Centre.
Since its inception, Quintec International has worked with law firms, corporate legal departments, government, insurance and financial institutions providing specialist consultancy in multi-layered collaborative environments, including document and content management systems, and advanced network monitoring, control and security software.
“Our decision to partner with NetDocuments was simple,” said Tom Lee, Managing Director for Quintec International. “Our clients are now demanding a far more sophisticated and cost effective content management solution where their entire collection of documents, emails and records can be stored in the ‘cloud’ with instant search/retrieve capability. They also require access to their documents via any internet-ready device in customisable work spaces, with the ability to seamlessly share information online with clients, all stored within a safe, secure and encrypted environment.”
Being in the cloud provides significant cost savings for document centric organisations. Since documents are stored online in redundant data centres there is no longer a need for costly offsite data backup and disaster recovery arrangements. Additionally, the NetDocuments service requires little or no administration compared with other conventional DM systems as only one instance of the service is ever in existence, ensuring all users remain on the current version with no expensive upgrades to entire installations.
The NetDocuments SaaS model services hundreds of law firms of all sizes. After twelve years in operation, it has the sophistication of powerful discovery-type searching, two-factor authentication, ethical wall security, email and digital records management and built-in business continuity for any national or international law firm.
Lee continues, “I have been aware of NetDocuments maturing as a service for a number of years now and have seen it quickly become a market leader, winning over a large and prolific customer base from other document management systems. Its ease of use is both intuitive and striking! Installation takes only a fraction of the time and with our imminent plans to commission UK based Data Centres, ensuring documents remain under British jurisdiction, NetDocuments suddenly becomes a definite contender right across all industry sectors!”
“With our rapidly growing customer base, NetDocuments has decided to expand its professional services resource by partnering with prestigious organisations such as Quintec International,” said Ken Duncan, CEO at NetDocuments. “We worked very closely with Quintec as far back as 1991, when they were instrumental in helping us launch our previous SoftSolutions document management system in the UK. I very much look forward to working with Quintec once again to capture market share in the UK. It’s just the best news for our existing users in Europe.”
“We are very excited by the prospect of working with NetDocuments” said Roy Harris, Marketing Director and co-founder of Quintec International. “NetDocuments is a totally scalable service suitable for a single user environment through to an organisation of many thousands and we have received a number of interesting enquiries from firms of all sizes across the UK. NetDocuments already boasts a rapidly growing user population here in the UK and it will be our job to build on this success!”
About Quintec International
Quintec International Limited specialises in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) environment. We provide Cloud based Document Management, Document Comparison, Precedent Management, Collaborative Environments and high-end Network Security Systems. Our best practices team provide business and technology advice to a variety of industry sectors, additionally supply I.T. services at a multitude of levels ranging from senior management though to project management, installation and maintaining our products for and on behalf of our valued customers.
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.
June 2nd, 2010 | Tags: Channel Partner, England, Europe, reseller, UK| Category: SaaS, Technology, business continuity, community, legal technology | No Comments »
OREM, UTAH – June 2, 2010 – NetDocuments, the leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content management service provider, announced today that the company has extended its existing Email Management Service (EMS) for Microsoft Outlook with an intelligent predictive email filing and tagging/profiling, as well as a send & file feature to prompt users when sending emails.
The existing NetDocuments EMS offering has provided users the ability to drag and drop emails to Outlook folders that correspond to existing NetDocuments online client/matter or project-related folders. Emails are stored in NetDocuments as native Microsoft msg files, full-text searchable and accessible anywhere, anytime. Additional features such as the ability to stub email attachments, view and full-text search NetDocuments directly from within Outlook and de-duplication of emails have all been available and continue with NetDocuments EMS.
Recognizing that Outlook users have unique preferences as to how they work in Outlook, e.g., maintain a personalized folder structure or live within the Inbox, NetDocuments offers choices as well as to how users wish to interact with NetDocuments while working in Outlook. A user within a firm may desire to have NetDocuments auto-populate folders in Outlook to drag and drop into at anytime, the advantage being that the emails get synchronized and updated to NetDocuments and shared with others, all done behind the scenes and auto-profiled based on the corresponding folder in NetDocuments. Alternatively, a user may wish to use this newly released EMS Profiler capability and not use folders for filing at all. Instead, the user would highlight emails in their inbox folder, or any personal folder, and then have NetDocuments prompt them as to the client/matter or project that the email should be filed within in NetDocuments. This prompting is based on NetDocuments intelligently remembering previous emails from a sender, mindful that emails from one particular sender may send emails that need to be filed into multiple client/matters or folders.
Supporting Microsoft Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010, EMS Profiler prompts the user with the metadata or Profile values by listing the most recent eight that were selected for the sender of that email, with the most recently selected as the default. If the highlighted email has not been previously selected, the user may pick from a pre-defined list of all clients or matters for the firm. EMS Profiler can be user configured to be auto-prompted when using the standard Outlook Send option, or select a unique File-to-ND button. Users can also stamp private or shared security on each email. Importantly, EMS Profiler will display all emails when viewing Outlook that have been filed to NetDocuments.
Alvin Tedjamulia, CTO at NetDocuments, stated “Law firms and corporations are driven with the prime directive to do more with less. Instead of having yet another system to manage emails, organizations today want to have a single service that can capture and profile email messages, and manage, secure, and search them under the same repository as the rest of the electronic and scanned documents. This allows a single powerful service for lower TCO and improved simplicity under a SaaS model.”
The NetDocuments SaaS model services organizations of all sizes providing a central point of collaboration, storage and management of their documents from the office, home or on the road. NetDocuments provides rich DMS services (such as version control, audit trails, ethical wall security, two-factor authentication, profiling, concurrency enforcement, searching, redlining and permissions enforcement), in the same way for externally shared and secured documents as with internal documents. Customers have a single user interface for all offices and for all users—for their internal DMS and for any collaboration, client sharing services—all with built-in disaster recovery services and 24×7x365 availability.
June 1st, 2010 | Tags: Email, Email Management, EMS, Predictions| Category: Email Management, Press Release, Technology, business continuity, collaboration | No Comments »
OREM, UTAH – February 23, 2010 – NetDocuments, the leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content management service provider, announced today it has been named to KMWorld’s 100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management for 2010.
KMWorld informs more than 45,000 subscribers about solutions for improving business performance and has been publishing its “100 Companies That Matter…” list since 2000, focusing on companies that “small and large, embrace a spirit of innovation and adaptability.” The list is compiled annually by KM practitioners, theorists, analysts, vendors and their customers and colleagues.
“In today’s knowledge economy, NetDocuments does more than simply throw sophisticated technology at its customers, it provides real solutions through inspired planning and execution throughout the entire constituency chain,” says Hugh McKellar KMWorld editor in chief.
“We appreciate the recognition by KMWorld and being associated with other prestigious companies in this industry,” said Ken Duncan, CEO at NetDocuments. “We have been fortunate to have had an early lead with over twelve years experience in providing leading SaaS-based content management to businesses of all sizes.”
February 23rd, 2010 | Tags: CMS, DMS, KM World, Relief, SaaS| Category: Cloud Computing, SaaS, business continuity, legal technology | 2 Comments »
OREM, UTAH – February 17, 2010 – NetDocuments, the leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content management service provider, announced today it has completed the SAS 70 Type I audit, and it has also completed the Truste EU Safe Harbor Certification, acknowledging that NetDocuments delivers its SaaS content management service and its web site in accordance with these standards.
The SAS 70 standard (Statement on Auditing Standards No.70) was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and is an internationally recognized auditing standard. SAS 70 designation represents that the AICPA or its designees have conducted a rigorous audit of the NetDocuments controls and safeguards over its information technology and all related processes.
SAS 70 Type I audit describes the company’s internal controls at a point in time and assesses whether they were suitably described to achieve control objectives. In six month’s time, NetDocuments will complete the SAS 70 Type II audit demonstrating the operational effectiveness of its controls over a period of time, and then maintain it year after year.
The TRUSTe EU Safe Harbor Seal communicates that a Web site has committed to protecting the privacy of EU visitors through compliance with the EU-US Safe Harbor Framework and participation in TRUSTe’s Watchdog Consumer Dispute Resolution service. The EU-US Safe Harbor Framework was developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce in concert with the European Commission to provide a framework by which US companies may comply with EU privacy directives protecting the personal information of European citizens.
“It’s absolutely essential for NetDocuments’ customers to have confidence in their hosted services provider and ensure we have effective controls, standards and infrastructure in place to comprehensively protect their data,” said Ken Duncan, CEO at NetDocuments. “We are committed to do everything we can to service our customers with the highest standards.”
February 17th, 2010 | Tags: accounting, CPA, law, legal tech, Security, Technology| Category: Cloud Computing, SaaS, business continuity, customer service, legal, legal technology | No Comments »
OREM, UTAH – February 8, 2010 – NetDocuments, the leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content management service provider announced today that the national law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, with over 400 attorneys, has selected NetDocuments as its new document management service across its twelve offices.
Nelson Mullin’s conversion to SaaS-based NetDocuments liberates the firm and its IT team from the need to continue managing and maintaining server hardware and desktop software across its offices, resulting in more focused face time with users. NetDocuments also blends collaboration, and document, email and records management into a single, globally-accessible repository, as well as superior searching from what they had before.
“After 15 years of using the same document management platform, we feel we have the same old technology we purchased 15 years ago, even though we have gone through several expensive upgrades,” said David Worth, CIO, Nelson Mullins. “A move to NetDocuments gives us an instant boost in technology with a TCO reduction.”
The NetDocuments SaaS model services law firms of all sizes and after ten years in operation, it has the sophistication of powerful searching, two-factor authentication, ethical wall security, email and digital records management, and built-in business continuity with two redundant world-class data centers required for any prestigious national or international law firm.
“NetDocuments is pleased to welcome the Nelson Mullins firm and its nearly 1,000 users to our SaaS-based, leading next generation of document management and collaboration,” said Ken Duncan, CEO at NetDocuments. Ken went on to say, “David Worth, the firm’s long-time and progressive CIO, has been watching NetDocuments for years and is now excited to deploy the service throughout the firm’s many offices. NetDocuments is delighted to be attracting larger firms and we are particularly pleased to provide our SaaS DMS to such a prestigious firm as Nelson Mullins.”
About NetDocuments
NetDocuments is leading the industry trend for On Demand document management and collaboration services. Organizations of all sizes can save tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars by eliminating the hardware, system and client software, and ongoing administration of a legacy client-server technology model. With the NetDocuments patented service simply “turned on,” business professionals can immediately begin storing, managing and sharing documents throughout the world and on any Internet-connected service device. Founded in 1998 and based in Orem, Utah, NetDocuments has 90,000 users in over 144 countries. For more information about the company and management, go to www.netdocuments.com.
About Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP
Established in 1897, Nelson Mullins has more than 400 attorneys and government relations professionals practicing from offices in Atlanta, Boston, Tallahassee, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., and throughout the Carolinas. For more information on the Firm, go to www.nelsonmullins.com , or call 803.255.9794.
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners
February 7th, 2010 | Tags: Change, Cloud Computing, Progressive, SaaS| Category: Cloud Computing, SaaS, business continuity, collaboration, document management, legal technology | 2 Comments »
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