PRESS RELEASE
London, 11 November 2013 - Sharp Europe today announces the launch of Cloud Portal Office, a sharing, storing and simple workflow service which allows businesses to collaborate better and work more efficiently. Providing access to information on a wide range of hardware, both stationary and mobile, Cloud Portal Office is perfect for businesses with a mobile or multi-office workforce, who want to help their teams work more efficiently.
A better way of working
Created to make it easier to share information, Cloud Portal Office lets you securely access, upload, download, manage and print files, create new folders, collaborate and share from any PC, mobile device, Sharp multifunctional printer (MFP) or Sharp BIG PAD interactive whiteboard. It makes team - working easier by giving everyone secure, on-demand access to every piece of information they need, instantly, wherever they are.
Peter Plested, Director, European Solutions Business Centre, Sharp Europe said: "Sharp's Cloud Portal Office connects the people in your business with the information needed by your business. We bridge the gap between people and productivity, helping businesses to stay connected, improve teamwork and perform better. Cloud Portal Office lets you take your team with you wherever you go."
Flexible, easy to set up easy to use
Cloud Portal Office is easy to set up and use, supporting companies with scalable workforces, who can easily add and remove user subscriptions, when working on projects requiring extra staff over a short time period.
Cost effective
This scalability means that Cloud Portal Office can provide cost savings to businesses. It's also a cost effective way to gain immediate access to the business benefits of the cloud without any upfront investment in IT infrastructure and is a simple way to diversify access to documents without needing to maintain a secure FTP site or VPN tunnels.
Safe and secure
Business benefits of Cloud Portal Office include secure storage: Cloud Portal Office uses best of breed partners for storage, with all data stored in the European Union. Data is stored only at the secure sites operated by Amazon Web Services and Fujitsu Cloud Services and is protected by access controls, firewalls and state-of-the-art encryption.
The service is accessed through a single sign-on portal, the Sharp Cloud Portal, which is securely controlled by your IT department. This means that as employees leave or take on different roles, you can use the Sharp Cloud Portal to change access permissions, cancel/add subscriptions, or increase storage space at a moment's notice - all through a secure web page.
Print from any Sharp MFP
Because the service is based on a per-user subscription model, rather than an MFP subscription model, it also offers flexibility in that users can print from any Sharp cloud-ready MFP, wherever they are.
Access to the Sharp Cloud Portal is pre-installed on many new Sharp MFPs, adding an extra benefit to the product line.
Example application
By way of example, a design company, where many of the team work from home offices, will need to share lots of large files with many different people: initial sketches, mock-ups and final artwork will need to be sent between different members of the team and clients and contracts will need to be shared securely with finance teams.
Easier to run than an FTP site, Sharp Cloud Portal Office lets a designer access a brief from the project manager from home and then upload artwork to be shared directly with the client, through a secure log-in. Sharp Cloud Portal Office will also let the project lead print off the contract and invoice - directly from the cloud through the office MFP.
To subscribe to Cloud Portal Office, please contact your local Sharp representative.
Coming soon
Through Sharp's Cloud Portal sign-on, Sharp will also offer scan and print connectors for other popular storage services. Dropbox will be available from the start and other connectors added on an ongoing basis.
For further information please visit: www.sharp.eu.
About Sharp Document Solutions
Sharp offers a comprehensive portfolio of award-winning document management solutions and hardware, ranging from office multifunction printers (MFPs) to large production systems. Sharp's proprietary Open Systems Architecture (OSA) technology can transform your MFP into a powerful information portal with seamless integration to the cloud and third-party business applications. Launched in November 2013, Sharp's Cloud Portal Office is a collaborative storage and workflow service to help your business stay connected, improve teamwork and perform better. We also offer Sharp Optimised Services which help to bring control, efficiency and productivity to your business. This is Why Sharp is the perfect solution for every office document management need. For further information, please visit www.sharp.eu.
