Web application services company BlueTie Inc. is changing the way businesses communicate, collaborate, schedule meetings and events and stay connected to what's important. And they do it better and cheaper than Microsoft. Moreover, they do it for Mac users equally as well as PC users.

What's To Love

As their website states, "BlueTie empowers small and mid-sized businesses with an easy-to-use and affordable, messaging and collaboration software suite including: email, shared calendars and files, contact manager, instant messaging and more."

And it does all of this through your Web browser or Java client software—and across platforms. And to make your office data truly mobile, the BlueTie system supports Palm device synchronization and wireless Palm device access to all your data.

BlueTie Features

BlueTie is a Web-based application service provider. When you sign your company up (or a portion of your company) you get email for each user, personal calendars and shared office calendars with unlimited appointments, contact manager with unlimited contacts, file store and file sharing (20MB free and upgradable), Instant Messaging, digital business cards, Task List, Enterprise Manager with centralized user control and billing. You also get unlimited secure document transfers to anyone in the world.

Calendar - Click to see larger view	Contacts - Click to see larger view

As you can see from the screenshots above, you access calendars, contacts, email, et cetera, through a browser. Above you can see the BlueTie system being accessed from Mac OS X using Microsoft Internet Explorer. You can access your data from anywhere in the world using just about any computer hooked up the Internet. You login with a secured password.

Saving You Money

As we mentioned, BlueTie is a web application which runs on BlueTie's secure servers. They operate a state-of-art data center, redundant backup systems, security and parallel databases. The whole system is running on Oracle's 8i database system. There is no software or hardware to buy or manage. This is one of the promises of web applications, with fast pipes common to all businesses in the future, companies like BlueTie and Oracle will be able to deliver applications and services to you where ever you are in world, on multiple Web-enabled devices, without having to run and maintain server hardware and software systems at your enterprise locations.

BlueTie's TCO (total cost of ownership) for a 50 person company is $14,970 per year versus comparative TCO for Microsoft Outlook and Exchange at $45,449 per year. BlueTie's cost is comparative to monthly Internet access for a home, at about $20 per month per user. That price can drop a bit for very large enterprises. While the company provides your corporate email, it does not provide your business Internet access.

The Database Question

What if you already use a database, like the popular FileMaker Pro or MS Access?

This is not a problem. BlueTie can import data from any ODBC-compliant database. If you are still in a paper-database world then you simply begin imputing your business's contacts and project information into the system.

Challenging Microsoft Exchange and Outlook

BlueTie offers the features of Microsoft's software at a fraction of the cost (1/3 cost) and delivers it to both PC's and Macs, thus rendering the anti-Mac excuse, "Exchange and Outlook don't support the Mac" obsolete.

This is wonderful news for mixed platform environments like K-12 schools, universities, research institutions and national labs, publishing and advertising businesses, science/technology enterprises and architecture firms—all places that commonly have both PC's and Macs.

Even better, using BlueTie—even if you are a homogeneous Microsoft Windows enterprise—can save you from the constant (weekly to be honest) computer virus threats that target MS Outlook and Microsoft servers around the world.

BlueTie in the Palm of Your Hands

These days businesses are planning for workforce data mobility. While no platform or company has moved into a dominant position, marketshare leader Palm Computing (54 percent last quarter) and its licensees, Sony, Handspring, Samsung and others comprise 8 out of every 10 handheld computers (over 84% marketshare combined).

Naturally, BlueTie is supporting the Palm OS platform first with its conduits for connecting to BlueTie data. BlueTie Wireless allows anyone with a qualifying Palm OS device to check their email, their calendar, and other BlueTie functions from their Palm wireless device anywhere in the US. Currently the conduit is only for Windows Palm support but Mac support should be coming. To learn more about that you can click here.

The AEC Firm Focus

A couple of weeks ago David Koretz, President and CEO of BlueTie, gave me a personal demonstration of the BlueTie system in a mixed platform environment (at an architecture firm) in the Boston area. While the LAN was fed with a 768 Kbps DSL connection, being shared by a staff of 15, the BlueTie system was incredibly fast (near instantaneous) for a Java-based Web application. BlueTie is focusing on the AEC space because it is a good fit in the market. Scheduling is a major activity of many businesses but especially important in project-centric businesses like architecture.

However, what likely will attract architecture firms to BlueTie are its scheduling functions. As Andrew Boone, who works in IT for King & King, a large 50 person architecture firm in upper New York State remarks:

BlueTie offers a powerful range of features. The Scheduling portion was what prompted our journey down this path, as scheduling meetings and resources in our firm of 55 people has become a ridiculous process. Of course, we already have e-mail, but BlueTie incorporates e-mail as part of the scheduling function. --- Andrew Boone, King & King Architects

King & King is an all Macintosh architecture firm, so MS Exchange & Outlook are not viable options for the firm. Mr. Boone also remarked that the central file sharing function was also attractive for them. Currently the firm is evaluating the BlueTie system and notes that the system is very cost competitive to other groupware options, including MS Exchange/Outlook:

Once we started looking at the total cost of ownership on running an Exchange server for Outlook, we could see that it was competitive. --- Andrew Boone, King & King Architects

Andrew noted that the cost of implementing the whole system for a 50 person office would cost about $13,000 per year, much less than MS Exchange/Outlook when you factor in all costs, but more expensive than some other Mac-friendly groupware products which have many of the same features as BlueTie, but not all under the same umbrella. Still, Andrew says:

My personal opinion is that for a smaller firm (than ours) it is a "no-brainer". It provides enterprise level functions without the capital investment or need for additional IT staff. -- Andrew Boone, King & King Architects

Closing Comments

As Mac users we should really applaud BlueTie for their efforts to support the Mac, despite the fact they are primarily targeting small to medium-sized Windows businesses contemplating or using Microsoft's Exchange and Outlook. Their attack on Microsoft's turf is laudable and to then throw in mixed platform support of the Mac is an extra bonus. As David Koretz, CEO of BlueTie explains:

I agree that most companies ignore Mac, and therefore also ignore companies that tend to be "mixed OS houses" such as architectural, design, graphic design, advertising/marketing and education. A lot of these firms might be primarily PC-based, but they still have Macs that need to work with any company-wide roll-out. Our decision to support Mac was with this in mind. -- David Koretz, CEO, BlueTie

David Koretz made a person tour of the Boston area's architecture firms (of which there are well over 150) recently and made a notable impression on a number of them. David tells me they are serious about targeting the architectural market, Mac folks included!

To learn more: http://www.bluetie.com

Architosh Analysis: This is great news for Macintosh businesses and institutions with large Mac installed bases. We see this product as having so much potential for dismantling the MS Exchange/Outlook hegemony, we are going to review it soon. We encourage David and his company to actively target Mac audiences who are somewhat without an Exhange/Outlook equivalent.