Bricsys, the Brussels, Belgium-based CAD software vendor that also provides a Software-as-a-Service project collaboration platform called Vondle (April 2007 post) is renaming the latter Chapoo, and incorporating some social sharing features. I heard about the name change last week during a telephone conversation with one of its executives, and the news was also broken by upFront.Ezine CAD writer Ralph Grabowski who attended Bricsys’s recent annual developer conference.
From the look of the new website, Chapoo’s launch is imminent (“Coming soon”), with the platform offering pretty much the same Vondle functionality albeit under a new branding, aiming to offer simple collaboration – file upload, sharing (notably via Facebook and Twitter social platforms), viewing and annotation – and all free (reminiscent of UK vendor Woobius‘s aims some three years ago – post).
(Update – 2 November 2012) – Guy Vancollie, chief marketing officer at Vondle/Chapoo (and my afore-mentioned executive contact at the company), has been in touch to say:
Vondle is indeed being re-branded into Chapoo. It will become the premium service of Chapoo. In addition, Chapoo will also have a free service with more limited functionality. In a nutshell:
- the Chapoo free service will provide for ‘simple document sharing’
- the premium service will be for ‘complete project information management and collaboration’.
Free Service
The free service provides for simple document sharing. It allows people to upload files and share them with friends and colleagues. Documents, including most text, image and office formats, but also CAD drawings, can be viewed and annotated without the requirement to download them and without the need for the authoring software itself.
Premium Service
The Chapoo premium service is a complete project information management and collaboration platform and provides project teams, whether employees, contractors, suppliers or clients, with a single view on all project documents, including full version control for a strong audit trail, and on the most recent project data. Through better project communication and process management, including workflow, forms, query and reporting functionality, projects teams can reduce errors, manage costs, eliminate waste and improve performance.
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