The Pond, an Octopz blog on communication, collaboration and coworking online.

Inky shows off our latest award.

We’re really feeling the hometown love today as we’ve been honored with a Deloitte Technology Fast 50 award in the Companies-to-Watch category. The awards, now in their 10th year, recognize business growth, technological innovation and Canadian entrepreneurial spirit. Our CEO, Ron McKenzie, had this to say in our news release:

The Octopz team is delighted to receive the recognition of the highly-regarded Deloitte Technology Fast 50 awards program, especially since it reinforces the positive reaction we’re receiving from the marketplace”

Today’s Globe and Mail, Canada’s newspaper of record, devotes four pages to the Fast 50 awards, including an article that features Octopz:

At first blush Octopz Inc. and Spatial View Inc., both of Toronto, and Brandimensions Inc., of Mississauga, Ont., would seem to have little in common other than being high-tech companies. But to Deloitte & Touche they are three of a kind.

Deloitte has singled them out as companies to watch in its 10th annual survey of Canada’s fastest growing high-tech ventures. For one of the three it means it has simply not been in business long enough - five years - to qualify for the official Fast 50 list. For the other two it is the market sector that caught the judges’ eye.

“They are either growing exponentially or are in an area of technology we think is emerging as a major sector,” says John Ruffolo, leader of Deloitte’s technology, media and telecommunications practice.

Further along, a description of Octopz:

Octopz falls into the developing-markets class. The company, which was launched last April at the annual Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, provides what industry observers say is a revolutionary online collaboration service for creative types. Platoons of artists, writers, designers and engineers can log in to dedicated virtual workrooms and create, revise and get immediate approval for projects. The rooms offer not only text and images but also voice and video, and the Octopz software stores every version of a work in progress for quick recall.

“The software was created by our founders, photographer Barry Fogarty and designer Paul Nykamp,” says Ron McKenzie, the company’s chief executive officer. “They developed it for their own business and realized they were onto something far superior to anything else available.

“When we launched it at Web 2.0 it was an immediate hit,” he adds. The technology news website CNET voted it one of the top five new technologies at the show.

So far so good, but what follows next needs some clarification:

Octopz is not yet selling its service. Instead it has offered a two-week free trial to interested parties; so far, more than 1,000 people and companies in 65 countries have accepted the offer. When it does enter the commercial market a license for a single workroom will go for as little as $99 a month or $1,000 for a year’s contract, Mr. McKenzie says.

The Octopz service is for sale NOW and has been since our launch in April. A free two-week trial is also available.

I’m not sure how this mixup came about, but We figured it out, it’s our mistake. We need to be more concise in our communications. Thank goodness for blogs and quick clarifications.

Technorati Tags: adobe, collaboration, Deloitte, flash, flex, Octopz, online collaboration, RIA, SaaS, web conferencing

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 11:26 am and is filed under All about Octopz, Awards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.