The Condrey Corp. Blog

Google Adwords and Kanaka

We started advertising Kanaka through Google Adwords this week. In the process, we created a specific, single product page where people who learned about the product through Google could get all of the information they needed on the product as well as purchase it. You can see the product page here.

We continue to see evaluation software downloads of Kanaka and DocXchanger from organizations in various industries. Just one example—a city government in California under the guidance of a Condrey Corporation partner, has a DocXchanger download up and operational. They have already determined that DocXchanger’s ability to eliminate the need for email attachments while providing remote access capabilities to network-stored files and folders is something they cannot live without and have decided to purchase the product.

Buck Gashler
Strategic Marketing Manager

DocXchanger Rollouts

Doug Ouzts, our Director of Partner Management, has been spending time this week overseeing the rollout of DocXchanger at a couple of locations. One is a school district in the Midwest whose teachers are ecstatic to have a product like DocXchanger to meet their remote access needs. This was a major reason that the proposal to purchase DocXchanger sailed through the school district’s approval board.

You’ll be hearing more about this school district in an upcoming success story.

Another rollout is an evaluation rollout with a church-sponsored retirement organization who stumbled across DocXchanger on a web search. They were intrigued by DocXchanger’s ability to eliminate the need for email attachments. They installed the 30-day trial license and we’ll be checking back with them on their experience with the product.

And finally, we got word this week of a university in New Jersey that just purchased DocXchanger.

Buck Gashler
Strategic Marketing Manager

More Details on the Free Kanaka Support for the Evaluation Software

As I wrote in an earlier post, we’ve decided to provide free technical support to everyone that downloads Kanaka. This support is available during the life span of the 30-day evaluation license. All you need to do is call us at 864-329-8528 and choose Option 1 to speak with someone in our Technical Support Department.

Kanaka integrates with Mac OS X’s native authentication services providing users single sign-in to Mac OS X and Novell eDirectory. Kanaka then auto discovers the user's home directory and collaborative storage locations based solely on the user's identity, and then automatically mounts the storage. Kanaka's auto discovery feature totally eliminates the need for users to know where their storage is located on the network, and the manual process of mapping associations to the storage.

Before installing Kanaka on your Novell NetWare or Novell Open Enterprise Server, we recommend you watch our installation video to see what you’ll be doing.

Buck Gashler

Strategic Marketing Manager

 

More DocXchanger Training Scheduled This Week

Doug Ouzts will be hosting a one-hour Webex-based DocXchanger training session at two different times on Thursday, April 24. The training is schedule for 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM (U.S. Eastern Time). We have been sending out an invitation to the training along with the HTML email pictured on the left to some of our existing customers. But don’t think you have to be an existing customer to participate. If you have an hour to spend, why don’t you register and call in? You can register here.

Buck Gashler

Strategic Marketing Manager

Free Installation and Configuration Help for Kanaka Downloads

We just made the decision today to offer free installation and configuration help to those that download the evaluation version of Kanaka. I’ll be providing more details later.

Speaking of Kanaka evaluation software, we have been getting an unprecedented number of Kanaka downloads lately. We suspect it could be a combination of the attention the product got at BrainShare, along with a recent Computerworld article on the product.

Kanaka is a plug-in for Mac OS X that delivers fully automated desktop user access to Novell services, including personal and collaborative storage and password change functionality. It integrates with the Mac OS X login subsystem to provide users with contextless single-sign on to both their OS X computer and Novell eDirectory simultaneously. Kanaka then goes about the task of automatically discovering, identifying, and mounting direct access to both personal and collaborative network storage for the user based solely on the user’s identity.

We had one Kanaka station at our BrainShare booth manned by one engineer, and he was continually giving demonstrations of the product. If you happened to miss a live demonstration of the product at BrainShare, you can see one here.

Buck Gashler
Strategic Marketing Manager

 

How the DocXchanger Plug-In Works

I am presently working with someone outside of Condrey Corporation on a DocXchanger advertisement for an on-line magazine. Yesterday I sent him a sharing link to a folder on one of our servers that has a lot of product artwork for him to work with. This was the first time he had seen firsthand how DocXchanger eliminates the need for email attachments by creating secure sharing links to network-stored files and folders.

After he clicked the sharing link that was embedded in the email, he got the following dialog box, and wondered which option to choose. I told him that each option would give him access to the files, but that the DocXchanger Plug-In offered some additional capabilities, including uploading and downloading the contents of folders for users granted Read-Write access. He was only given Read rights to the folder, so he just accessed the files through the web. But I suspect that once he’s done some designs, we will want to use that folder as a collaboration area (rather than send email attachments) and he will need Read-Write rights to do so. With Read-Write rights, he will want to use the DocXchanger Plug-In.

So Todd, here is what you will need to do:

1. From the DocXchanger Sharing Link Notification screen above, click Install Plug-In.

2. When prompted, save the file.

3.  Locate the saved DocXchanger-plugin-win32 installer file and double-click it.

4. Follow the instructions in the installation wizard to complete the install.

5. Return to the DocXchanger Sharing Link Notification screen above and select the Workstation Access button to access the sharing link.

This launches the Plug In and provides a split screen showing the contents of the network folder above, and your Windows workstation file system below. You can now drag and drop between the two locations. You can also open documents directly from the network area by double clicking.

Buck Gashler
Strategic Marketing Manger

Tests, Translations, and Titles

From April 8-10, Doug Ouzts and I were on-site at Novell’s Provo camputs working on a project for Novell Training Services. It is a new Technical Skills Assessment for all products in the Novell Identity and Security Management business unit, which includes Novell Storage Manager.

Doug and I worked with Rob Monson from EOS Systems, a Condrey Corporation partner, in developing a pool of over 80 questions. These questions ranged from beginner questions to advanced. Most of the questions came from the current Novell Storage Manager 2.0 eDirectory Platform Advanced Technical Training course. However, we did get some of the more advanced questions from www.storagemgr.com. I believe the Technical Skills Assessment will be completed and available from Novell sometime this summer.

Speaking of Novell Storage Manager, I recently ran across a short article in  magazine published in Corporate Compliance in Germany. You can read an English version of the article here. The article summarized the incredibly long titled IDC white paper: “Identity and Security Management and Strong Information Technology Governance: Novell’s Solution Suite Automates the Approach to the Perfect Union” that was published in February. Both the article and the white paper discuss Novell Storage Manager’s role in enforcing security compliance for enterprise organizations through storage polices, and document retention.

Buck Gashler
Strategic Marketing Manager

DocXchanger Customer-oriented Webinars Now Scheduled

 

Following last week’s DocXchanger training for partners, we’ve now scheduled some customer-oriented webinar training on two different dates:

Tuesday April 17 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time
Tuesday April 24 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time

DocXchanger trained partners will soon be sending out the attached invitation to their customers (click the thumbnail to see a larger version of the invitation).

But you don’t need to be contacted by a Condrey Corporation partner to attend the webinar. As a faithful reader of this blog, consider yourself invited! Now all you need to do is register at http://condreycorp.webex.com 

Buck Gashler

Strategic Marketing Manager

Final Four

With the NCAA Basketball Tournament’s “Final Four” play to begin this weekend, I curiously took a look at our customer list to see if we had customers at any of these universities. It turns out we currently have products deployed at three of the four. Coincidentally, Doug Ouzts, our Director of Partner Management and “Get on a plane at a moment’s notice demo guy” was asked today to schedule a trip to the remaining campus for a requested demonstration of Kanaka as a solution for the university's problems with its Macintosh computers accessing its eDirectory tree.

Buck Gashler
Strategic Marketing Manager

Partner Training

Doug Ouzts, our Director of Partner Management, has been conducting DocXchanger partner training sessions via Webex this week. Yesterday alone, Doug had four sessions. He has more planned for April 4. If you are a partner who has not signed up for DocXchanger training, you can do so here.

Speaking of Doug, during a training session yesterday, Doug was demonstrating the ability within DocXchanger to grant read/write rights to folders with outside users for group collaboration. He granted rights to a partner that happened to record Doug’s on-stage performance of “Sweet Home Alabama” with a cover band at a BrainShare party. All of the partners were then able to “relive the magic” of that event. I watched the video for the first time this morning and took a still shot from the video. I’d like to thank Don DaRe at Consensus Consulting for making the video available.

We had a nice discussion this morning with the IT Director of a school district in the Midwest that will be the first rollout of DocXchanger. The IT Director was very excited to be offering DocXchanger’s remote access to network storage to the district’s faculty and staff. I’ll be sharing more information on this customer following the rollout.

Buck Gashler
Strategic Marketing Manager