Mindjet targets cloud, universal user experience

According to Greg Brown, Mindjet’s vice president of worldwide sales and services, the software vendor is also expanding its reach in Asia and sees Singapore as a gateway hub for growth. Mindjet provides productivity and collaboration software and applications, such as MindManager, which aim to help businesses visually organize ideas, information and resources in order to increase team productivity and cost savings.

One of the changes in the way businesses use mindmapping software today compared to the last 5 to 10 years is the advent of cloud-based applications, said Brown in an interview with ZDNet Asia. Mindjet last year launched its SaaS application, Catalyst.

Brown explained that the launch was driven by demand from customers wanting the ability to access the vendor’s software via the cloud.

Mindjet also recently signed an agreement with SingTel-owned grid computing provider Alatum, to develop a cloud-based infrastructure and enable the distribution of its business applications throughout the Asian-Pacific region.

Universal user experience
Beyond the cloud, Cameron Ackbury, general manager of Mindjet Asia-Pacific, noted that employee productivity can be further improved when collaboration and applications can be accessed anywhere regardless of the platform.

He added that it is important to provide users the ability to access and view information on a single dashboard.

To provide these requirements, Brown said the company’s latest desktop release, MindManager 9, features some key improvements including new tracking capabilities to provide a richer user experience for brainstorming ideas and managing a work process or project.

He added that with more users adopting mobile devices and accessing the Web via mobile devices, Mindjet wants to provide a consistent and uniform user interface and experience, as well as access to the same capabilities on the desktop, smartphone, tablet or cloud.

And while user experience should be universal, companies can tailor Mindjet’s software to meet their specific business needs, he said, noting that the vendor provides an open API (application programming interface) to enable local customization.

Market opportunity in Asia
Pointing to the growth opportunity in Asia, particularly the high adoption of social media and cloud computing, Brown said Mindjet is looking to increase its presence in the region where their services have been sold through resellers.

In addition, the company has plans to expand its distribution and reseller network in Asia, he said.