Readers may remember when we mentioned Japan-based cloud service CloudDock back in April at the Echelon Tokyo satellite event. The company which operates it, Eugrid, is just a five-man team, but their offering is extremely ambitious.
As we mentioned in our previous report, CloudDock is an enterprise cloud solution for Windows and iOS, that lets you keep all your user information, like documents and pictures, stored in the cloud, as opposed to storing it locally, or syncing a local file to the cloud. This is a big contrast to consumer cloud services like Dropbox, which can still be a security problem if your device is lost or stolen. The folks at CloudDock point out that some companies even have strict policies in place prohibiting employees from taking PCs out of the office for this very reason.
With CloudDock, which launched in beta back in February, users can see their cloud files only after they login to the service. It’s at that point that icons are shown representing your files – but they are still not downloaded onto the device until you click on them. Upon logout, the device memory is wiped clean again. You can get a more visual explanation in the promo video above.
What I find most intriguing about CloudDock’s game plan to date is that the company expects to support other public cloud storage services (as opposed to providing their own cloud storage or on-premise storage), such as Skydrive or Google Drive, but still letting users benefit from their end-to-end security enhancement solution.
The folks from CloudDock just recently attended the main Echelon conference in Singapore, and they tell me that they learned a lot while there, meeting lots of VCs and companies. A representative explained:
Singapore and the surrounding regions were pretty different from Japan. Especially when we look at security, most SMEs don’t care about it. Dropbox is fine for them. Very large companies such as banks and government related agencies do care, but it will be very difficult for a tiny company like us to penetrate. This is the same as Japan.
For now, I understand that the company will stay focused on their home market of Japan in order to “strengthen the fundamentals”. But as feedback has been very positive so far, they also want to spread the word about their service internationally too.
Junya Mori
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Rick Martin
