Koomb
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What is Koomb?

In the past couple of years social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have spread across the internet like wildfire gaining hundreds of millions of users and generating billions of dollars in market capitalization. The secret of the success of these applications is how they make easy and diverse forms of communication a simple one-stop experience. Sure, as critics have stated, you can duplicate the versatility of Facebook with a half-dozen different applications, but why would you?

Inspired by the overnight success of social networking, many are asking if something similar can be created for the purpose of business networking. To this end, we have developed Koomb, a business networking application that combines the best of Facebook and Google Earth mapping software with the best document management and collaboration software there is.

Escendo Solutions is committed to bringing collaboration and decision support to business that makes sense, is cost effective, and well equipped with the right tools. Our mission is to become the premier service provider for collaborative, and connected, software that allows people to make better decisions and increase communication regardless of where they are, who they are, and what challenges have made communication difficult in the past.

  • Koomb is a concert of office communication, collaboration, and decision management tools. Koomb allows any organization, from largest to the smallest, to dramatically improve their productivity and efficiency. It replaces a discordant arrangement of mutually incompatible products (i.e. Microsoft SharePoint, Facebook, Google Earth, etc.) with a single unified solution.
  • Koomb harmonizes four vital business activities: Communication, Collaboration, Document Creation & Management, and Time Management – and as a bonus includes advanced mapping capabilities.
  • Koomb is an enterprise level social utility that connects people with coworkers, projects, and even management of enterprise level projects spanning continents. People use Koomb just as they would Google Earth, Facebook, and SharePoint. The beauty of Koomb is it’s everything in one platform, instead of an array of internet applications Koomb provides all of the features of Facebook, SharePoint, and Google Earth in one product. Already translated into French and Spanish, Koomb is set to be translated into Mandarin (and other dialects) as well as German upon a funding event.
  • Koomb is the only enterprise-scalable, single-platform solution that offers integrated content and collaboration services for all types of project work and all types of content, including documents, email, spatial data, and rich media, both across and beyond the enterprise.

SaaS

Koomb will be offered on demand as a service. The SaaS model is very attractive to a wide range of customers because it significantly reduces the financial and operational burdens typically associated with hosting complex software solutions. In addition, software updates and 24/7 support are included in the monthly or annual fee. Escendo will be using a leading third party vendor to host, maintain and support our ASP infrastructure. Our servers’ hardware, operating systems and configurations will be “best of breed” to guarantee a high level of availability and exceptional performance. Inaddition we will provide full backups and disaster recovery services.

Spatial Tools

In addition to its great document management and collaboration features, Koomb provides users with a comprehensive spatial toolkit. This spatial toolkit sets Koomb apart from its competitors and is the key differentiator. Utilizing the latest spatial open standards and protocols users can upload, import, share and publish spatial data in a variety of formats including OGC Web Map Service and Web Feature Service layers, ESRI Shapefile, MapInfo MID/MIF, Geography Mark-up Language, ECW, JPEG, GeoTiff, Google KML and ArcInfo Grid. Furthermore, spatial data stored in Koomb can easily be integrated into desktop GIS and CAD systems such as ESRI ArcInfo and Autodesk MapGuide.

Managing spatial data in Koomb is easy. The intuitive user interface allows non-technical users to upload, share and publish spatial data in just a few clicks. For more advanced users, Koomb also provides a comprehensive legend editor that allows users to not only control how their data is displayed in map but also what features are displayed and whether or not they can be queried. Koomb brings powerful spatial data management and publishing functionality to the masses and when combined with its document management and collaboration features Koomb stands on its own as a leading collaboration platform technology.

Support for Standards

Access and manipulation of all spatial data is via OGC web service protocols (http://www.opengis.org/). Koomb has mechanisms for registering, searching and retrieving spatial data using such web services, as well as mechanisms for automatically creating web services for spatial data stored locally by Koomb.

Koomb currently supports the WMS (Web Mapping Service, for browsing images) and WFS (Web Feature Service, for retrieving and updating vector data) web service standards; support of the WCS (Web Coverage Service, for retrieving raster data) standard is planned.

Visualization of data is supported via the SLD (Styled Layer Descriptor) and WMC (Web Map Context) standards, which enable users to select data subsets and assign symbolization to them. Koomb also manages metadata by using the Canadian Geoscience Knowledge Network metadata content standards, which are a subset of the U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee specification.

Simplified Administration

Koomb provides users with a powerful and intuitive suite of workspace administration functions. Accessible through an administrators “dashboard” these functions enable workspaces to be created and managed, including:
  1. Configuring a workspace by changing its visual appearance or by selecting which information and collaboration functions will be made available to workspace members;
  2. Adding and deleting workspace members, and editing their profiles including security levels for accessing and publishing information;
  3. Managing workspace content, including the recycle bin, which enables recovery of deleted items, and workspace statistics, which summarize workspace activity.
In addition to project management, Koomb provides a powerful and intuitive suite of system administration functions. These functions which are also accessed from a system administration “dashboard” enables the system administrator to:
  1. Assign disk usage quotas;
  2. Delete and/or restore users and workspaces;
  3. Configure the system (mail servers, style sheets, FTP servers, security, system wide defaults, etc…);
  4. View and manage the system log files;
  5. Send system alerts and messages to users.

User Friendly Design

Koomb is designed to be configurable and easy to install. Koomb enables users to design custom user interfaces, such that the look and functionality of Koomb can differ from one installation to the next and indeed from one workspace to the next. Such customization can be accomplished in its basic form without additional programming. Once custom styles are in place, they can be selected from a pull-down menu, resulting in a different screen appearance and potentially different functionality; users can also toggle between the English, French and Spanish languages at any time.

Installation is also being designed to insulate users from the complexity of managing web services. The overall notion behind Koomb is re-usability: it isdesigned to be a plug-and-play web mapping and collaboration environment that facilitates collaboration with spatial information.

Peer to Peer Virtualization

In addition to the spatial toolkit, Koomb differentiates itself from the competition by supporting peer-to-peer virtualization of workspace content between “Product” nodes. This allows organizations to maintain strict control over their proprietary and sensitive information while sharing it with their stakeholders. Each “Product” node can push and/or pull data and information to/from other “Product” nodes. This allows users to seamlessly search across a network of “Product” nodes for information assets and add them to their workspace(s).

Each “Product” node is an endpoint that can belong to one or more networks. These networks can be ad-hoc or formal and are completely configurable in terms of level of access and visibility.