Enter e-grou

A new name in the online document management space is Portugal-based e-grou, which is about to launch a free edition of its web-based solution.

Available “soon”, e-grou Free Edition is claimed to be “the first document management software solution made available on the web as a service, completely for free” and is aimed at “small organizations that cannot afford the costs of a document management solution and still need one to do business”. As well as integration with Microsoft Office, the product also offers some AutoCAD connectors so would appear to have some potential for use in the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) market – though the e-grou website is vague about what vertical markets it is targeting (if any).

It can’t really claim to be the first free web-based document management system (Huddle, for example, has a free price plan), while in the construction space, e-grou would be competing with the likes of Woobius (see post).

The company also offers a Professional edition (still SaaS but added functionality) and an Enterprise edition (where customers want in-house hosting). Developed using Visual WebGui (see article) and built using Microsoft SQL, from the screenshots I’ve seen the product looks like a Windows application (a plus point for some, a major turn-off for others).