See the original story in Japanese

Tokyo-based web solution provider GaiaX has introduced a new tool called Co-work. It’s specifically designed for communication and knowledge sharing among colleagues at your company.

GaiaX has been developing a social networking platform for specific purposes like following up with students before hiring, or keeping in touch with employees paternity or maternity-leaves. During this development process, the company recognized the need for a corporate communication platform that could improving operational efficiency in business.

To sign up for an account with the new service, you’ll need a corporate email address. No free e-mail addresses are allowed. Its features are still very limited, with basic file sharing, as well as a mention feature that allows you to ask other colleagues if a requested task was completed. There’s also timeline feature called ‘company’ which allows you to check out what’s happening in other sections or departments. With this function, the app encourages you to share knowledge with colleagues beyond your immediate projects.

The company’s communication manager Takashi Sabetto says that there’s still more room to develop in the ICT market, not only for startups but also for big companies. They are planning to add optimization for smartphone browsing, as well as Chinese and Korean versions. Currently Co-work is available in Japanese and English.

The corporate chat space is getting noisy

These days most of us are forced to use an assortment of communication channels like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or e-mail. It often troubles me to think which channel is the best way to get in touch with someone, or even worse is the dilemma of trying to recall which tools I’ve used in the past to exchange messages with someone. I hope this congested environment can sort itself out some day soon.

In addition to this the Co-work app, Osaka-based startup Chatwork has also developed a corporate communication tool. They have acquired more than 150,000 users and are now looking to expand to North America and other Asian regions. Cybozu Live, another key player in this space, has surpassed 3,000 corporate accounts. US-based project management tool Asana is also seeing good numbers in its business user acquisition in Japan.