DeskAway: web based project management tool for SMB market

January 4, 2008

By sinha

Mumbai based startup, Synage has launched DeskAway, a web based project management tool primarily targeted towards small and medium businesses.DeskAway’s USP lies in the fact that it’s a typical SaaS model (i.e software as a service) and charges on per-user and storage basis.

Few Features of DeskAway:

Track multiple projects
Completely Permission-based,View project activity as and when it happens
Assign and track milestones and tasks
Reporting and Analytics
Share Files, Documents, Messages, Calendar Events, Contacts

Overall, DeskAway is a neat product, but somehow I believe that they need to actively pursue the reseller channel and probably tie up with other online office provider for distribution. Currently, they have a strong first mover advantage (probably the first web based project management tool from an Indian company) and they need to aggressively tap the SMB market.

For SMBs who get exposed to Google Apps/Zoho office suite in future, transition away from DeskAway can happen in a blink of the eye (Google’s JotSpot is shaping up pretty well and I am amazed at the cleanliness with which they are adding jazz to the product).

DeskAway, it’s not clear is targeting only the Indian market or US market as well. The dynamics of Indian market are very different (price conscious, easy availability of pirated MS project software) and even though Indian SaaS market is estimated to touch ~$40 mn in 2008, larger portion of the pie will be taken off by SalesForce, Zoho and Google apps (who will start distributing Google apps with Airtel broadband).

Also, another feedback to DeskAway team – it’s better if you not copy the “yellow background highlighting” from 37signals! The more I look at DeskAway, the more it reminds me of 37signals (and the competing product, BaseCamp).

Give DeskAway a spin and do share your comments.
tags: deskaway

Tags: DeskAway, Indian Startups

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Gaurav on January 4, 2008 at 1:03 pm

Ashish – Screen shots look good. I totally agree with the similarity to 37signals design and highlighting.

If Deskaway team is reading this – They have app’s screen shots, but a demo instance always helps to evaluate a service.

Sahil on January 4, 2008 at 3:43 pm

Hi Gaurav,
Besides the screen shots, you can take DeskAway for a spin with the free account.

Sameer on January 4, 2008 at 4:51 pm

Very neat product..i like their clean interface and modules needed for a typical proj mgmt solution.

Weird thought – why don’t they partner with Zoho? Zoho doesn’t hv a proj mgmt offering (that I know of)?

Sahil on January 4, 2008 at 5:11 pm

Hi Sameer,
Zoho does have Zoho Projects.

Nicolas Cary on January 4, 2008 at 7:48 pm

A similar application called PipelineDeals can help companies get organized around their customers and sales pipeline. Its clean interface is very elegant and reminds me of DeskAway. Best of luck!

Regards,
-nic

Natalija Trajchevska on January 4, 2008 at 9:07 pm

Check out ProjectOffice.net, an online project management tool that provides all-in-one functionality: managing projects and tasks, time management, issue tracking system and increased team collaboration through wikis.
ProjectOffice.net is a web-based solution that offers basic project management functionality and enhanced collaboration for its users and their teams. It is completely free of charge and can be used after the one-step registration has been completed. With ProjectOffice.net, individuals and teams can create projects and tasks, can assign tasks to project members, can track time, expenses and issues and can use wikis to boost collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Sameer on January 5, 2008 at 5:08 pm

ProjectOffice seems to be a cool tool..where is the team based out of?

Ashish on January 6, 2008 at 3:36 pm

@Sameer – Zoho has it’s own project suite. Point that I was trying to make in my post is that DeskAway needs to really increase on app distribution.
I have worked in a SaaS startup and have seen the pains. But unlike US where companies are a lot worried about data protection (SOX compliance etc), Indian cos. will adopt to a cheaper stuff as long as they see a value.

Having said that, the cost to serve Indian cos. is very very high!!