On Tuesday, US-based mind mapping software vendor, Mindjet, formally entered the collaboration software market with the release of a new product, Mindjet Catalyst. Delivered via a SaaS-based model, Catalyst leverages the company’s background in “visual collaboration” tools to provide a solution which aims to overcome the problem of “over-communication” in organisations, caused by the introduction of many different, unintegrated communications and collaboration tools which simply complicate the environment, rather than actually supporting collaboration, the company claims. Catalyst combines mind mapping with web conferencing (OEM’d from an un-named third party), team workspaces, VoIP, video and instant messaging to provide an environment where teams can collaborate both in real time or asynchronously. Mindjet positions Catalyst as “project management-based collaboration”, and provides a number of activity templates for users such as project planning, brainstorming, and creating a marketing plan, to help organisations understand how the non-linear, visual technique of mind-mapping, combined with a collaborative editing capability, can provide benefits to teams working in a distributed environment.
This is an interesting step for Mindjet, which has long sat at the periphery of collaboration software. But as with other types of productivity tools, it has gradually adopted a more collaborative approach, culminating in this full-on challenge to the many vendors addressing either the conferencing or team workspace aspects of the market. With this bold move away from its traditional packaged software business (the company has 1.5 million users of its desktop product, MindManager), the challenge for the company will be how well it can adapt to the SaaS-based model, in terms of engineering, marketing, and the channel (both from a technology partnership and distribution perspective). It is also up against some large competitors in the web conferencing market – notably Cisco, Microsoft and IBM – and so it will need to clearly articulate its key differentiators in order to gain significant profile in this space. From a pricing perspective it is on a par with the likes of Cisco WebEx, and given that Catalyst includes both mind mapping features as well as web conferencing capabilities, this seems reasonable value, although as a new entrant it still has to prove itself worthy of this price tag.
The Mindjet Catalyst offering is well-worth considering if you are drawing up a shortlist of collaboration vendors – while this is a new product, it takes a different but refreshing approach to collaboration, combining communications-centric and resource-centric capabilities in a single, integrated environment. Mind mapping is a concept that some struggle with, having become accustomed to the linear formats of tools such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, but by delivering it as a collaborative, almost wiki-like environment, this may be the opportunity for Mindjet to “cross the chasm”.
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