Accellion's new Office for iOS solution walks the line between IT and users

This morning, Accellion unveiled the first secure mobile file sharing solution for iOS to include complete viewing and editing of Microsoft Office documents. An Android version is following.

The updated Accellion Mobile App and its new feature, the Accellion Mobile Productivity Suite, builds on kitedrive, a mobile file sync tool that takes advantage of the company's secure mobile file sharing solution. 

When it announced kitedrive last year, Accellion referred to it as "Dropbox for the enterprise" because it delivered access to enterprise files and documents on desktop PCs and on mobile devices. The result was that business and enterprise users got much of the functionality of Dropbox but with some powerful enterprise additions like integration with SharePoint, plug-ins for various enterprise applications including Outlook and Lotus Notes, granular file-sharing permissions, and the ability to aggregate a range of back-end cloud storage solutions including private on premise hosting, public hosting from Amazon, and hybrid cloud deployments.

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Having developed a secure enterprise solution for mobile devices, Accellion set itself the task of improving document security and functionality.

Addressing two big challenges: workflow and security

When developing the Accellion Mobile Productivity Suite, Accellion identified and solved two major problems with typical mobile workflows.

The first is the need to switch between various apps to accomplish key tasks, something that can be a particular nuisance on an iPhone or iPad because of Apple's refusal to include anything resembling a true file system in iOS.

In resolving that issue, Accellion also addressed a more serious second challenge -- the possibility that opening and editing secure business documents with outside apps might allow the contents of secure documents to be copied into other files or apps or for a document to be saved outside of the company's secure container.

The real value here is in the simplified workflow. Other companies have delivered solutions that create secure on-device storage containers. Good, in particular, has been very active in working with business app developers to integrate its container approach so that users have a range of apps that automatically use that container for business documents and files. That promotes a scenario where even though a user is switching between multiple apps -- one for viewing and organizing files, one for editing, and potentially others for commenting and collaboration -- there is a consistent level of security.