EchoBlog - The Latest From EchoSign

BT eSignature Gets an Update

Across the pond, we're known as "BT eSignature".  British Telecom, or BT, one of the world's largest communications companies, provides a BT-customized version of EchoSign to its 4,000,000 customers (and other users) in the U.K. and Europe.

They've recently updated their pages with not only a snazzy new look-and-feel, but some great testimonials from R.J. Hutcheon Solicitors (a UK law firm), Rawnet (a UK communications agency) ... and BT itself, which processes over 20,000 contracts a month on EchoSign.

We're also a key part of their Broadband & Internet application suite.

This has been a terrific partnership for us with BT and our joint customers and it's great to see the joint offering continue to evolve and improve.

Thank You For the Support!

Digitalbucket Integrates EchoSign

We just saw that Digitalbucket implemented a very nice EchoSign integration.  Digitalbucket is a SaaS on-line digital content collaboration platform launched in 2007.

There are a number of ways to integrate EchoSign into your application.  One option, as implemented by Digitalbucket, Zoho, Box.net and other web leaders is to securely request EchoSign credentials (i.e., EchoSign account information) to send, sign, track and store documents.  This has the advantage of not requiring the integrating application to provision or manage or, in the case of paid accounts, bill end users.  In just a few hours, your application can integrate electronic and fax-based signatures and full workflow and routing around signed contracts.

For our Salesforce.com partners and customers, another option is to integrate with our Salesforce.com custom object and "push" the contract into their object for signature.  Again, no account provisioning, billing or tracking is required and there is no cost.

We'll also look at single sign-on and similar integrations (such as the EchoSign integration with WebEx Connect or HR Block Rocketlawyer) in another post.

EchoSign Chosen for 2009 Montgomery Technology Conference

 We were very pleased to learn that Montgomery & Co. has chosen EchoSign to present as its 2009 Technology Conference, which fortunately for us is right on the beach in Santa Monica March 10 and 11.

Please let us know if you are attending.

Even better, a number of our customers will be presenting as well: RightScale, Intacct, Jigsaw, Drivecam, among others.  We'll see you there and thank you to Montgomery & Co. for the recognition.

Fax and eSignatures -- Like the Telegraph and the Telephone

Seth Godin's blog had a short piece entitled "Solving a Different Problem" that really resonated with us.

His piece noted that when the telephone came along, it had a challenge.  Telegraph technology was well established and held four distinct advantages: "It was universal, inexpensive, asynchronous and it left a paper trail."

"If the telephone guys had set out to make something that did what the telegraph does, but better, they probably would have failed. Instead, they solved a different problem, in such an overwhelmingly useful way that they eliminated the feature set of the competition."

While we've talked about how the transition from written to e-signatures is like the transition from analog to digital photography, on further reflection, the transition from the telegraph to telephone is an even better metaphor (if a less recent one).

Let's see the similarities between Fax and Telegraph:

• universal: yes (more or less) for both fax and telegraph
• inexpensive: yes for both
• asynchornous: yes (your fax # just sits patiently waiting for a fax)
• paper trail: yes

That would sure seem to stack the deck against e-signatures.  So why then is EchoSign up 250% in January?  Why do 97% of our customers tell us they'll never go back? 

Because electronic signatures solve a slightly different program in an overwhelmingly useful way ...

[Continued after the jump]

EchoSign Chosen for Pacific Crest Securities' 4th Annual On-Demand Conference

We're extremely pleased to have been selected for a second year in a row to present at Pacific Crest Securities' Annual On-Demand Conference.

This is a true "who's who" event in the SaaS world, an insiders' event where the top leaders in SaaS convene.  Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, will kick off the event.

We'll be speaking on "Running a SaaS Business in Difficult Economic Times", the topic du jour, on a panel hosted by Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource Inc, together with Jim McGreever, CFO of Netsuite, Perry Wallack, CFO of Cornerstone OnDemand, and Christopher Cabrera, CEO of Xactly.

On that note, a small aside that EchoSign sales were up 250% in January.  Thank you to those of you who came onboard in these challenging times -- we really appreciate your business and will strive to keep and earn it.