Category Archives: lunarr

clearspace, clearspace x, collaboration, jive software, lunarr, portland

LUNARR Launch

I attended the LUNARR dinner last evening where they launched the alpha version of their product. It is always nice to see another Portland tech company launch a product!

The answer to the question on everyone’s mind: “Do they compete with Jive Software” is No. We have a large, open collaboration platform, while LUNARR is laser focused on document collaboration, but with a different spin. In Clearspace, people collaborate on documents openly with everyone viewing everyone else’s comments. The LUNARR model is to make the document available to select people, but the discussions / comments on the document are more private (like an email back channel for every document.) What they have is pretty cool, but it is a very different model.

I was talking about them with Selena over lunch, and she thought it would be great for the education market. Because you control the document and the email back channel associated with it, I could see students and teachers using it for assignments. For example, a student completes the first draft of a paper, uploads it to LUNARR, gets feedback from the teacher, makes revisions, gets more feedback and eventually a grade. Later, the students can share the final paper with the rest of the class while the back channel with the teacher feedback / grades stays private.

I also think this is a great solution as a light weight way to share a few documents with friends, co-workers, contractors, etc. If you do not want discussions, blogs, and other features that come with a full collaboration platform (like Clearspace), the LUNARR solution would be an easy way to collaborate on documents.

You can learn more about them on their site or in this article

I also have a few invites – drop a comment here with your email address if you want an invite to play with their application.

collaboration, jive software, lunarr, portland

LUNARR Coming out of Stealth Mode on September 17

Another local Portland collaboration company, LUNARR, is coming out of stealth mode with a product demo / networking event on September 17th at CubeSpace. The Japanese founders have promised to have Japanese food and drinks at this free event. If you want to attend, you can RSVP on Upcoming.

I hear you asking the question, “Hmmmm, another Portland collaboration company; wouldn’t they compete with Jive?” To be honest, I’m not sure yet, but I think that the competition between the two companies is minimal, since we seem to be focused on slightly different aspects of collaboration. From the minimal pre-launch information on the Lunarr website, they seem to be focused on document collaboration and projects, while Jive’s focus is on providing a broad collaboration suite with forums / discussions, wikis, and blogs along with our realtime collaboration (XMPP-based instant messaging) platform. While Jive provides a broad collaboration suite, LUNARR seems to be laser focused on serving a specific niche, and I suspect that there is plenty of room in this market for both solutions!

Please keep in mind that I am working with limited information, so most or all of the above could be incorrect. Anyway, I will be there on the 17th to learn more!