Kalexo - how project teams connect

Google Wave has certainly grabbed the attention of a lot of folks recently. If you have not heard yet, Google plans to blend the best aspects of Email and Instant Messaging into a real-time collaboration tool. A “wave” is essentially a real-time document where all participants can edit at the same time.

Since the Wave announcement, a lot of people that are involved in complex project management have started wondering how they might catch the wave themselves. And here at Kalexo, we are asked the question how does Kalexo Teamwork differ from Google Wave? It is actually a very pertinent question -- we believe in many of the same concepts.

Kalexo’s equivalent to a wave is called a “thread”. Just as a wave, threads also allows for synchronous and asynchronous communication, sharing files and the like. However, Kalexo Teamwork is a complete unified collaboration system too.

Project management features are built into each thread. You can prioritize them, set dates, classify, report status, and use them to flow work securely between all project members (via dragging and dropping a soccer ball on thread participants). You can also slice and dice threads in an infinite variety to answer useful questions project managers are interested in. For example, I can easily determine what my critical tasks are for the day or the week, nicely organized and prioritized. Project managers can do the same for the whole team.

Another distinguishing feature is the file streaming built into each thread. You view large file collections by simply flying around in a “document landscape” – it is like sort of Google Maps for your files & media.  There is no need to open or download documents. In addition, you can easily add your own comments, redlines and track multiple revisions.

And perhaps one of the biggest differentiator is that your threads are always accessible on your desktop. Kalexo Teamwork is an installed application, so you can be notified instantly when projects updates occur, and you are reachable for chat and online meetings at the click of a button.

Kalexo is taking a different tack than Google Wave in deployment. You will be able run our own Wave services from the ground up, if you wish to do so, whereas Kalexo is using a proprietary network. Providing the Kalexo "dialtone" is resource intensive (compute cycles and bandwidth) and is a complicated mix of different service types (voice, video, screencasts, chat, file storage etc).

See Kalexo Teamwork in action