Online collaboration is a crowded field packed with applications covering different angles of this very wide and not always clear need, to improve collaboration between people working together on the same stuff.
Konolive is one more application struggling to penetrate and get recognition. It is a PC client, based on the adobe AIR platform, developed by Israeli start up 2win solutions. The company was 
founded in 2005 by Yossi Dan (serves as CTO) and a few other un-named founders. 2win solutions started its way developing tailored collaboration projects to large Israeli clients. The experience gained through those projetcs was put to use in creating what the company describes as “The first instant collaboration software solution”.
Konolive’s main feature is the collective chat, an IM for working groups. Users can open an “Activity” in a unique window, give it a name, dates, location and tags, invite others to view and join in, upload files and chat away. The uploaded files can be viewed by all without the need to open browsers. The users assigned to the activity can comment on the docs and all the back and forth between them will be saved in an easy accessible place.
The client offer is not new, but has a different flavor than others. But is that enough? Konolive is joining a very crowded field, full of good solid products, ranging from collaboration built-in features in MS office family (such as “Shared workspace” and “Track changes”) through cool, neat and not free online software from the house of 37signals (Basecamp, Backpack, Campfile), collaboration tools like Koral, Live document, and Google docs, all the way to twitter-like web 2.0 tools such as Yammer.
Konolive looks like a good tool for web workers and other office dwellers, for cases in which rising above the cubicle and communicate directly is not an option. It is easy to use and the GUI will be familiar to anyone who knows IM (and we all do). It assumes that the most critical feature for collaboration is chat, and althought possibly accurate, it might miss the spot. Regardless, if what you need is IM communication with co-workers then Konolive can be the tool for you. As for private or single users, I don’t think Konolive provides anything more than a typical IM client.
Finally, on a personal note: I downloaded, installed and registered to konolive. And only to konolive. And then I got an email from Box.net welcoming me. Since then I got 2 more emails from them. I never signed up for box.net. Sure enough, Box.net provides online storage for konolive. Even so, I would prefer not to be part of this business relationship and not to be aware of it.
If you’re making it to Europe this December, you can see Konolive live at Le Web 2008 in Paris.
This post was contributed by Liraz Axelrad an experienced product manager, expert in the world of internet and mobile web with great love to all things webby. Edits by Eze Vidra.
