(Archived) Should be trying to get more serious with business users!

[Stephen Heath 0]

Evernote is a great product and is fun to use, however when I have serious stuff to do it falls short. More and more, business papers are being distributed electronically and typically before going to meetings, users will highlight, underline, make comments etc on these documents. The Ipad and other tablets have allowed the electronic docs to stay electronic for use in meetings. Only problem is that it seems Evernote has missed this opportunity.

Notes Plus absolutely nails this functionality without being as great as Evernote in other areas. I'm using Notes Plus for business use when it comes to managing electronic Board Papers and other reference papers that I want to scribble over before taking into meetings as well as take more notes on these docs during meetings.

Great product but not quite ready for the Meeting or Board Room.

Stephen.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Evernote for Business is coming soon.

http://www.computerw...ol_for_business

Evernote CEO quote:

The difference is that Evernote will offer administrator controls. Businesses can purchase group accounts, control security and data ownership settings and control transfer rights, according to Libin. The goal is to adopt the tool for corporate IT systems,

although a white label version is out of the question

. "Absolutely not, we'll never do it," Libin said, adding that he thinks that offering a white label version is too much of a distraction. Companies will not be able to run an Evernote server behind the corporate firewall. Libin called it a "slippery slope" saying that he refuses to be a consultant that constantly adjusts its product for the customer.

"I think companies that are not comfortable using the cloud aren't going to be Evernote customers," Libin said. While he estimated that may eliminate 50 percent of potential corporate business, he expects that more companies are going to get comfortable using cloud products in the future. Libin isn't expecting to sell to financial institutions since, he said, that is the industry least likely to purchase cloud products at the moment. However, the creative industry is already using a lot of cloud products, he added.

"I think the opportunity is huge,"

Libin said.

[Stephen Heath 0]

Yes, but will they have the functionality. Functionality first then business accounts and administration.

[Metrodon 2,184]

I'm guessing that part of the reason they acquired Penultimate is for the ability to annotate. Plus of course you can use any other app to mark up a document and then use Evernote to store, search etc.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Yes, but will they have the functionality. Functionality first then business accounts and administration.

Depends on what you mean by the word "functionality".

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Great product but not quite ready for the Meeting or Board Room.

Welcome to the forums. I suppose it depends on how you use it. If you were hoping to spend 100% of your time in Evernote, then it is probably not going to be a great app for business. I think there is a tendency (I share it as well) to want to find an uber note-taking app that does everything. That may come someday, but it isn't here yet, and Evernote certainly doesn't seem to be headed in that direction.

Instead, Evernote seems to work best with plain text notes and the storage of completed projects. What I mean by this is that if you have an entire day of meetings with several PDFs that will be marked up (I do today), you could store a copy of each PDF original in my account (one note for each), tag them all with the date and meeting, and then open all of the PDFs in GoodNotes (my notetaking / annotating app of choice). When you finish today, you can put everything into Evernote, tag them all with the meeting tag, and you'll have one set of originals and one set of marked up texts. When you have tiime, and if you find it necessary, you can type up a brief summary of everything, make note links to all of the notes, and be done with it. What Evernote does here is allow you to mix medias in notes, link them all together, OCR the content, find everything easily with searches, and share it easily with colleagues. This is hugely powerful if you have hundreds of meetings to file away somewhere and no one else even comes close -- certianly not Notes Plus. It is the combination of Evernote and other apps that gives it so much power (in my opinion).

What I don't think Evernote does well yet, in my opinion, is provide options on the desktop for selective syncing. The workflow I described above is what I did in the past when I had a huge hard drive. Now, with my Macbook Air, accumulating a gigabyte or two each month, and doubling that to account for database bulk resulted in a huge portion of my disk (about 1/4) being eaten up by Evernote after just a year. So, I have a slightly different workflow that is more cumbersome and fails to take advantage of many great aspects of Evernote. I put all of the original files in Dropbox (one folder only, and every PDF is titled YYMMDD + keywords) and after I finish marking them up in GoodNotes, I put those copies in Dropbox as well. In Evernote, I merley put a brief summary of the meeting with the names of the files in Dropbox so that I can find them later if needed (everything is YYMMDD so they are pretty easy to find). It is somewhat more cumbersome, and not exactly ideal, but it keeps my database very small. Someday, when we get selective syncing (as they have already added to the mobile devices), I think Evernote will be far better positioned for businesses.

[idoc 400]

I have adapted Evernote for my office and am thrilled with the results. However, it did require some jerrymandering (sp?) to get it all to work. I am able to scan thousands of pages which are then stored in shared notebooks which my employees can interface with. We also use HelloFax which interfaces directly with Evernote and allows my employees to fax, receive faxes and collate everything on Evernote. I subscribe to FilethisFetch which collates all my bills, statements, invoices directly into Evernote automatically where it is checked by various employees. Office forms, pdf's and docs are all kept in various places in Evernote and my employees are able to access those, make changes and store the changed copies in other designated sites in Evernote. We all share one Contacts notebook in Evernote (a huge advantage). I have pages for each one of my employees where I keep track of all communications that I share with them so that I can always confront them with the exact email, letter or whatever in writing. I keep all of my professional invoices, statements, contracts etc on Evernote all mixed in with my home stuff (but never confused). My entire office is now paperless because every piece of paper that comes in is scanned into Evernote with 2 Fujitsu snapscans. So yes, I would say that evernote has been an extremely robust and invaluable part of my office workflow.

[jefito 5,589]

@idoc: hmmm, ' jerrymandering' is division of geographical areas for political benefit, maybe not quite what you meant (or maybe it was, double hmmm). Maybe 'jury-rigging'?

Anyways, good that Evernote is working well for you in your office; I think the Evernote business case is only going to get better as we go along.