Xythos Launches On-Demand Content ManagementXythos Launches On-Demand Content Management

Xythos Software has launched on-demand content management services for small and midsize businesses looking to avoid the expense of licensing and maintaining in-house systems.

Xythos On Demand, unveiled Tuesday, provides secure file storage and collaboration features through a browser-based interface. The offering is a scaled-down version of the company's Enterprise Document Management Suite.

The software-as-a-service product offers document storage and file management features such as check-in and checkout, version control, and automatic change notifications sent via e-mail. For collaboration, each file can be accessed through a URL, so only links need to be e-mailed among people working together on documents. Folders and files are displayed in a tree-like format similar to Windows Explorer.

Privately held Xythos launched the service to reach SMBs that don't have the money or the need for expensive systems used in large organization, Jim Till, chief marketing officer for Xythos, says. In addition, the service could meet the needs of departments or remote workers of large organizations.

By offering its product on-demand, the company is looking to "democratize enterprise content management much like Salesforce.com has done for customer relationship management," Till says.

Common to software-as-a-service offerings, there are no license or maintenance fees or upgrades with Xythos On Demand. Instead, Xythos charges a monthly fee that starts at $4.95 per month for a single user. The price is determined according to the number of users and the amount of storage. A 10-user account, for example, would cost $39.95 a month. Xythos is offering a 30-day trial at no charge.

Xythos has offered the service in beta for the last five months. Among the 200 companies that have used the service is Korban Associates, an executive recruiting firm for the pharmaceutical industry. Korban uses the system to reduce the firm's dependence on office-based file servers, preferring to offer employees more flexibility in conducting business over the Web while outside the office.

Revenue from software as a service is expected to reach 25% of new business software by 2011, compared with just 5% last year, according to Gartner. Most software-as-a-service deployments have been within departments of large organizations. In 2005, 8% of CRM software revenue came from on-demand services, but other markets such as ERP and supply-chain management were less than 4%. Software-as-a-service revenue in CRM is expected to reach 12% of the total this year, according to Gartner.