BlueTie Unveils Ajax-Based Integrated Collaboration Suite

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Tuesday, June 13, 2006; 05:28 AM

BlueTie, provider of Software as a Service for small and mid-sized businesses, announced the launch of an all-new calendaring and task management application integrated into its award-winning collaboration suite. The new web-based tools deliver performance that rivals that of desktop applications, makes managing busy schedules easy, and allows users to instantly schedule meetings with colleagues across the office or across the world.

The desktop-like speed of the new calendar and task management applications result from BlueTie's use of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) - a technology that enables automatic changes to content without requiring the full Web page to reload. 

"While other vendors are just testing the waters with beta versions, we've already delivered these improvements to our customers in a fully supported and integrated release," said Robert Conway, Director of Product Development. "With a pure Software as a Service business model, our customers benefit immediately from BlueTie's steady stream of new features without additional installation or upgrade costs."

With the new release, users can create or reschedule appointments through a drag-and-drop feature that instantly notifies participants of the change. A color-coded overlay of colleagues' calendars identifies common available meeting times making it easy for users to avoid scheduling conflicts. Quick Add, an intuitive appointment scheduling feature, also allows users to enter a brief phrase using common language -- such as "Lunch with Jane at 12 on Tuesday" -- to automatically add meetings to their calendars.

This latest Calendar release also introduces support of the iCal industry standard, which enables BlueTie's customers to coordinate their schedules with users of other iCal-compliant calendaring software.

"With BlueTie's shared calendars our administrative support staff is able to access and update the calendars of our management team," said Andrea Jones, Support Analyst for F.C. Tucker Company, Inc. "And now with BlueTie's color-coded calendar overlays, scheduling appointments with multiple members of our leadership team will be a snap."

These new service improvements follow closely on the heels of the email upgrades BlueTie released early in 2006. This earlier release provided customers with the first glimpse into the speed and performance increases and user interface improvements that are now becoming the hallmark of BlueTie's offerings.