Google Drive For Work, Education Get New Data Security Features

Google Maps Easter Egg Sets Pac-Man Loose On City Streets
Google is launching an update to Drive for Work and Drive for Education today that introduces a number of new tools for users who need to have greater control over how their data is shared both internally and with external customers. Over the next few weeks, both Google Drive for Work and Google Drive for Education users will get access to these new tool.As Google product head for Drive Scott Johnston told me earlier this week, the new features are a follow-on from the launch of Drive for Work nine months ago. Companies need to feel that their content is safe in the cloud and to do so, they need the kind of controls Google is now bringing to Drive.
This means admins can now set sharing settings based on departments, for example. Using this tool, admins can allow the marketing group to share files with the outside, but the finance team can’t share documents with anybody outside the company’s domain, for example. In addition, users (and not just admins) can now disable downloading, printing and copying from the sharing menu.
While most of the new features are about restricting access to documents, Google is also making it easier for users to share files with those who don’t use Drive. This can be enabled on a per-document basis by individual users, but admins can disable this for specific departments, too.
With this update, admins are also getting a few new tools. They can now set up custom alerts, for example. Say a user wants to share a file with the word “confidential” in a headline with somebody outside of the company. Admins can now get an alert and investigate what’s going on. In addition, admins can now get more audit reports that tell them when files are printed, downloaded and previewed.
Drive for Work users (assuming the admins allow this) can now also reset their own passwords. This may look like a minor feature, but this means users won’t have to wait for an admin to reset their passwords after getting locked out after once again forgetting their passwords.
Related ArticlesGoogle Launches Drive For Education With Unlimited StorageGoogle Launches Drive For Work With Unlimited Storage For $10/Month
Another new feature that’s in the pipeline (but isn’t ready to launch yet), is support for trusted domains. Google notes that many companies have multiple Google Apps domains or may want to work closely with a business that also uses Google Apps. Soon, admins will be able to select a number of Google Apps domains that users can share with freely.
Also coming soon is the ability to share access to a document for a limited time.
Overall, these new feature clearly target the larger enterprises that Google is trying to get on its platform. Access restrictions and complex audit tools have long been the domain of enterprise tools like Microsoft SharePoint and similar services. Google surely hopes that adding these features will make it easier for these businesses to move to its online productivity suite.

By: Unknown On 15:36

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FiftyThree Lands $30M From NEA To Build Creation Tools For Enterprise And Education Users

Dataminr Confirms $130M Raise To Take Its Social Media Data Analysis To New VerticalsFiftyThree has spent the last several years making products to increase creativity among users. Now the company has an eye on producing new tools not just for the consumer market, but that enterprise and education users could also leverage. To help with that, the company is also announcing it has raised $30 million in new financing from New Enterprise Associates.
FiftyThree started out with an iPad app called Paper that was built to give users new tools to unlock their creativity. It followed that up with Pencil, a stylus designed to interact with Paper and make it easier for creators to use the app. Most recently, the company released Mix, which provides a new way for them to collaborate.
Each of those products has been pretty successful on its own: Paper has had more than 13 million downloads and more than a million users have begun using Mix to work on projects together. And while the company doesn’t break out sales numbers for Pencil, that product has apparently sold well and has retail distribution through channels like Amazon and Apple Stores.
Part of its products’ growing popularity is the recent decision to make the Paper app free and explore other ways to make money. That includes sales of hardware (i.e., Pencil) and plans to sell new in-app creation tools.
Paper ships with what FiftyThree calls its “Essential Kit” — a set of tools that lets users draw, write, color, and outline within the app, among other things. Think Kit will give users new tools, which FiftyThree CEO Georg Petschnigg says will enable them to sketch presentations, diagrams, and flow charts, among other things.
“Our insight is that in companies, in the long run innovation always trumps efficiency,” Petschnigg told me by phone. To increase innovation within organizations, Think Kit will take all of the previous technology that the company has built and add what it calls an “intention engine” into the mix.
The company’s inspiration for the new product comes from analog tools like the whiteboard, sticky notes, and legal pads, which Petschnigg says are still some of the best ways for businesspeople to collaborate with one another. The hope is that by providing them with digital tools that perform similar functions, FiftyThree will be able to make it even easier for them to do so.
FiftyThree sees a big new set of potential users for the product, and as a result has brought on a new investor to help it tackle that market.
With NEA leading its $30 million Series B round and partner Dayna Grayson joining the board, the company believes it gets the best of both worlds — an investment firm that understands enterprise, along with a partner who understands designers. Petschnigg notes that he met Grayson three years ago, and that he was impressed by her focus on design-led companies.
The new investment comes on top of $15 million in Series A funding that FiftyThree raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Highline Ventures, Thrive Capital, SV Angels, and Jack Dorsey two years ago.
The company has grown to more than 50 employees in New York City and Seattle, and it plans to add 20 to 25 more, according to Petschnigg. It will focus on hiring more designers, engineers, and some marketing people, but despite its new focus on enterprise and education, he says the company isn’t planning on adopting a big sales force.
“50 percent of people use Paper for professional use,” Petschnigg told me. He also noted that the app has more users on the iPad than Excel, which is one reason he believes the company is well-positioned to take advantage of its built-in install base. The app has also seen a huge amount of downloads in the education space after it went free.
Could it convert them into paid users? By launching Think Kit as a premium set of tools inside Paper, FiftyThree sure hopes so.

By: Unknown On 13:39

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On The Way To An IPO, Education Technology Startup Instructure Is Close To Raising A Big New Round

Education technology company Instructure has raised a big new round on its way to an initial public offering later this year, according to several sources familiar with the company’s plans.

We’ve heard rumors from multiple sources that the cloud-based K-12 and higher education platform is raising between $50 to $70 million in Series E funding, while one source put the low end of the range at over $40 million.

The maker of the Canvas learning management system and the Canvas network MOOC platform has taken on the online education tech giant Blackboard since its launch in 2011. Both Blackboard and Canvas offer online educational platforms for the scholastic set.

Blackboard, which launched in 1997, still claims to have the corner on the virtual learning market serving just over half

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