Hightail

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hightail , formerly YouSendIt , is a cloud service that allows users to send, receive, digitally sign and synchronize files. YouSendIt.com and YouSendIt Inc. were founded in 2004; the company was renamed Hightail in 2013.

In the beginning, the company focused on helping users send files that were too large for email attachments. In 2007 it started adding features and plug-ins for businesses. The service grew rapidly, and the company raised $ 49 million in funding between 2005 and 2010. The service can be used via the Internet, a desktop client, mobile devices or with a high-tail plug-in from business applications.

In May 2015, the company brought Hightail Spaces onto the market, designed to encourage creative professionals from the conception of an idea to its implementation.

In 2018, Hightail was acquired by the Canadian software company OpenText .

history

Hightail was founded as YouSendIt Inc. in 2004 by three co-founders: Ranjith Kumaram, Amir Shaikh and Khalid Shaikh.

In the early years, Amir was in charge of advertising revenue, Jimmy Vienneau was in charge of business development, Francis Wu did the graphic design including the logo, while Kumaran focused on the user experience and Khalid did technical work. As of May 2004, the company had 300,000 users and was growing by approximately 30 percent every month. In September of that year, Cambrian Ventures invested $ 250,000.

Initially, YouSendIt was mainly used for sending large files such as photos or audio files that were too large for the file size limits set by email providers at the time.

In August 2005, funding of $ 5 million was raised. Then there was a dispute between the founders - within a few years Khalid and Amir Shaikh left the company, while Kumaran continued to work in product management and marketing.

In 2011, Sheikh pleaded guilty to carrying out Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on the YouSendIt service website between December 2008 and June 2009 .

Ivan Koon took over as CEO and YouSendIt raised a total of $ 49 million a short time later. YouSendIt grew, reaching 100,000 paying and 8.5 million registered users by March 2009.

In January 2011, acquired YouSendIt Inc., a developer of Microsoft Outlook for add-ons , called Attassa, and an iPhone app developer, called Zosh.

In May 2012, Brad Garlinghouse, a former CEO of AOL and Yahoo, was named CEO. He refocused the company on file sharing and remote access to documents, competing with Dropbox Inc. and Box Inc.

In January 2013, YouSendIt acquired Found Software, a company that developed the Found application for Mac, which searches for files on Macintosh computers and on connected networks.

In July of the same year, YouSendIt announced its name change to Hightail to illustrate its move beyond file sharing towards file collaboration services. In addition, new mobile applications for iOS and Windows devices were introduced, as well as an unlimited storage option.

In September 2013, Hightail acquired adeptCloud, a security-oriented file sharing service for hosting files within a company firewall. In November, Hightail raised $ 34 million in additional funding.

Brad Garlinghouse stepped down as CEO in September 2014, allegedly due to a disagreement with the board of directors. He was replaced by co-founder Ranjith Kumaran.

In February 2018, Hightail was acquired by OpenText. In March 2018, Hightail employees moved to the OpenText offices in San Mateo , California, and the Campbell office was closed.

Products and Applications

Hightail service users upload a file to Hightail's servers and recipients receive a link to download the file. Users can also manage files in an online folder system or create desktop folders that access online storage.

In addition to Hightail.com, the service can be used by desktop applications for Windows and MacOS or by mobile applications for iOS and Android devices.

There are also plugins for business applications such as Microsoft Outlook and Yahoo! Mail that users can use to send files from within the application. Documents can be digitally signed with Hightail using a mouse or a touch screen. The service has a pay-per-use security feature and files sent via Hightail are encrypted in transit and when stored on individual devices or servers.

The consumer version is sold on a freemium basis, while a business product is sold as YouSendIt for Business, which was originally released as a workstream. YouSendIt for Business can be integrated into Active Directory and Microsoft Sharepoint . The business version has additional functions for use in companies, such as For example, remote data erasure on mobile devices, service level agreements, and controls for compliance requirements such as HIPAA and PCI.

In 2013 the company had more than 40 million registered users in around 200 countries. Most take advantage of the free service for 2 GB of storage, while half a million users paid for unlimited storage and additional features.

In 2020 there were also mobile app applications called Hightail in the iOS App Store and for Android in the Google Play Store .

Receptions

The PC Magazine evaluated the service in 2013 with 4.5. The reviewer , Jeffrey Wilson, found the application easy to use and referred to the digital signature and cloud storage features . Wilson reported problems trying to use the digital signature feature with the phone held upright and occasional crashes. TopTenReviews rated the service with 9.5 out of 10 points. TopTenReviews praised the product for unlimited downloads and accessibility from a desktop, laptop or other mobile device. In benchmarking tests, it took the service seven minutes to upload a 30MB file, compared to an industry average of six minutes.

According to a 2012 report by Small Business Trends, "probably one of the most powerful features is the ability to sign digital documents." A review on About.com said the service was easy to use and referred to its password protection, file tracking, and interface branding features, but also pointed out that users cannot copy themselves to files that are sent via the Hightail Outlook application. A MacLife reviewer in 2012 liked the syncing and collaboration tools but had some complaints about a "clunky" user interface.

Regarding the "for Business" product, PC Advisor stated that Dropbox could be better customized, while YouSendIt had the advantage of integrating with Sharepoint and Active Directory for corporate environments.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bradley L. Jones: Web 2.0 Heroes: Interviews with 20 Web 2.0 Influencers . John Wiley & Sons, April 14, 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-24199-8 , pp. 178– (accessed January 17, 2013).
  2. ^ Dan Goodin: California man accused of DOSing site he founded . In: The Register , October 30, 2009. Retrieved January 11, 2013. 
  3. ↑ Former YouSendIt CEO Pleads Guilty to Web Attack on his Old Company . In: Los Angeles Times , June 27, 2011. Retrieved January 13, 2013. 
  4. ↑ Christina Farr: With Strategic Buy-up, YouSendIt Plans to do more than File Delivery , VentureBeat. January 15, 2013. Retrieved February 21, 2013. 
  5. ↑ James Gadkin: Web 2.0 Works to Solve Problems . In: Network World , March 26, 2009. Retrieved January 13, 2013. 
  6. ^ A b Pui-Wing Tam: Brad Garlinghouse Lands at YouSendIt . In: The Wall Street Journal , May 15, 2012. Retrieved January 23, 2013. 
  7. ↑ a b Serena Saitto: Hightail Raises $ 34 Million to Finance International expansion . In: BusinessWeek , November 19, 2013. Retrieved December 17, 2013. 
  8. ↑ David Carr: YouSendIt Takes on Box Dropbox in Cloud . In: InformationWeek , December 14, 2011. Retrieved January 17, 2013. 
  9. ↑ Ken Yeung: YouSendIt Acquired Found, adds File Searching to its 48m Users Closer to a 'Cloud-Nostic Future' , TheNextWeb. January 15, 2013. Retrieved January 17, 2013. 
  10. ↑ Kara Swisher: YouSendIt's Brad Garlinghouse Talks About Found Acquisition, Rebranding and More! . In: The Wall Street Journal , January 15, 2013. Retrieved January 19, 2013. 
  11. ↑ JP Mangalindan: Why YouSendIt had to change its name . In: Fortune , July 10, 2013. 
  12. ↑ Rolfe Winkler: Hightail Goes after DropBox with Unlimited Storage . In: The Wall Street Journal , July 10, 2013. Retrieved July 11, 2013. 
  13. ↑ Arik Hesseldahl: In New Challenge to Dropbox and Box, YouSendIt morphs into Hightail , AllThingsD. July 10, 2013. 
  14. ↑ Rolfe Winkler: Hightail goes after DropBox with Unlimited Storage . In: The Wall Street Journal , July 10, 2013. Retrieved August 19, 2013. 
  15. ↑ Poornima Gupta: How about Hightail-ing it? , Reuters. July 11, 2013. Retrieved August 19, 2013. 
  16. ↑ Meghan Kelly: Hightail buys adept Cloud to make file storage safer in the cloud , VentureBeat. September 17, 2013. Retrieved September 20, 2013. 
  17. ↑ Leena Rao: Hightail Buys AdeptCloud to Add High Level Security and Privacy Features to File-Sharing , TechCrunch. September 17, 2013. Retrieved September 20, 2013. 
  18. ^ Eric Blattberg: File-sharing service Hightail lands $ 34M to court the enterprise , VentureBeat. November 19, 2013. Retrieved December 17, 2013. 
  19. ↑ a b Arik Hesseldahl: Fresh Off Rebranding Effort, Hightail Lands $ 34 Million in New Funding . In: Wall Street Journal , November 19, 2013. Retrieved December 17, 2013. 
  20. ↑ Why Brad Garlinghouse Left Hightail , re / code. September 12, 2014. Retrieved September 16, 2014. 
  21. ^ Walt Mossberg: Is There a Tool to Help Send Large Files Over the Internet? . In: The Wall Street Journal , June 14, 2007. Retrieved January 14, 2013. 
  22. ↑ Mark Gibbs: YouSendIt When attachments do not work . In: Network World , June 5, 2006. Retrieved January 14, 2013. 
  23. ↑ Tomio Geron: YouSendIt Launches File Syncing, Takes on Dropbox . In: Forbes . Retrieved January 15, 2013. 
  24. ↑ Lauren Simonds: E-mail Attachments: Size no Longer Matters , Small Business Computing. July 24, 2007. Retrieved January 15, 2013. 
  25. ↑ Services can help send large videos. (Business) . In: Daily Herald , August 3, 2008. Retrieved January 23, 2013. 
  26. ↑ Martin Bryant: YouSendIt Steps on Dropbox's Turf with Unlimited Cloud Storage Service , TheNextWeb. July 26, 2011. Retrieved January 15, 2013. 
  27. ^ Jefferson Graham: Meet the all-new YouSendIt . In: USA Today , July 27, 2011. Retrieved January 15, 2013. 
  28. ↑ Chris Gayomali: YouSendIt Now Offering Cheap, Unlimited Dropbox-style Storage . In: Time Magazine , July 26, 2011. Retrieved January 15, 2013. 
  29. ↑ Sarah Perez: YouSendIt ups its Game with new Desktop & Mobile Apps , TechCrunch. December 13, 2011. Retrieved January 15, 2013. 
  30. ^ Austin Carr: Why You Should Never Pay for a Premium Online Subscription . In: Fast Company , October 11, 2010. Retrieved February 21, 2013. 
  31. ↑ David Carr: YouSendIt Gives Enterprises New SharePoint Power . In: InformationWeek , March 6, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013. 
  32. ↑ Hightail - Apps on Google Play. Retrieved April 14, 2020 .
  33. ↑ Jeffrey Wilson: YouSendIt (for iPhone) (article retitled Hightail July 2013) . In: PC Magazine . Retrieved January 23, 2013. 
  34. ^ TJ McCue: Small Business Online File Sharing: Review of YouSendIt , Small Business Trends. January 3, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013. 
  35. ↑ Heinz Tschabitscher: YouSendIt - Free Large File Sending Service , About.com. Retrieved January 18, 2013. 
  36. ↑ JR Bookwalter: YouSendIt Review , MacLife. January 11, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2013. 
  37. ↑ Angela West: YouSendIt Launches Collaboration Tool with SharePoint tie-ins . In: PC Advisor , March 7, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.