NetDocuments Announces Unprecedented Growth in Fourth Quarter

Global News

13
Jan
2016

Editor

250% new legal customer increase in 2015

NetDocuments, the leading native cloud/SaaS-based document and email management service for law firms and corporate legal departments, today announced the strongest quarter of growth to date, adding over 130 new customers in the fourth quarter of 2015.

New customers added include Am Law 100 firms Arnold & Porter, Crowell & Moring, and Finnegan Henderson; top five European firm Cuatrecasas, UK 100 firm Sackers; Am Law 200 firm Thompson Hine; and other leading US-based firms Munsch Hardt, Reminger, and Miller Nash Graham & Dunn. These firms are all replacing their on-premises and hosted versions of on-premises systems with NetDocuments’ native cloud-based document and email management solution. 

The unprecedented fourth quarter growth marked a banner 2015 for the company and a 250% increase in new customers over the previous year. The widespread adoption of NetDocuments’ cloud-based platform reflects a trend poised to accelerate significantly in 2016. “In the US market, NetDocuments is entering the ‘early majority’ phase of product adoption as leading firms and legal departments increasingly embrace the next DMS transition,” stated Matt Duncan, NetDocuments CEO.

To further state the case for cloud acceptance, according to the 2015 ILTA Technology Survey, 51% of law firm respondents predicted an increase in their firm’s adoption of cloud-based solutions. 

“End users today have increasingly lower tolerance for technology that is not modern, intuitive, and inherently mobile, while at the same time, law firm clients are demanding increasingly higher levels of security and compliance. As law firms execute on cloud strategies to enhance the end-user experience and take security and compliance to the next level, NetDocuments has become a natural choice,” concluded Duncan. Alvin Tedjamulia, CTO at NetDocuments commented: “In all respects, 2015 was a breakthrough year for NetDocuments in terms of adoption and innovation around the security and infrastructure of our native cloud technology. We announced architectural and product breakthroughs, including customer-controlled encryption keys and private storage options which are solving the critical customer and client-driven demands for enhanced security while improving ease of use and product innovation.”

Accordingly, the biggest law firm security challenges cited in the 2015 ILTA Technology Survey included ‘balancing security with usability’ (31%) and ‘user acceptance and behavior’ (24%) versus ‘cloud apps/data security’ (4%) which ranked much lower compared to previous surveys and market feedback.

In addition to meeting overall increased law firm and corporate legal customer demand for native document and email management cloud technologies, NetDocuments made significant technology and strategic partnership advancements in 2015. Highlights include:

• Microsoft Alliance – A strategic partnership and enhanced integration of Office 365 and ndOffice™, inclusion in the Storage Partner Program, and Azure regional deployment, enabling customer firms to leverage the most Microsoft-aligned and integrated cloud DMS available on the market today.
• Predictive Email Management – NetDocuments acquired Recommind’s Decisiv Email for its advanced predictive technology and has since incorporated key product enhancement into its global cloud service providing customers with a superior predictive and mobile email management solution.
• Encryption Key Management –Next generation cryptographic encryption key generation and optional customer key management at the matter and document level provides advanced security and silent subpoena defense.
• Private Storage – Firms or a firm’s client can privately store data while continuing to use NetDocuments’ native cloud application enabling data sovereignty for regional or international offices.
• Dispersed Object Store – Advanced data storage across three regional datacenters enables the highest level of security and availability through data splicing, dispersion, and document self-healing capabilities.
• Industry-Leading Compliance – NetDocuments achieved the ISO 27001 and Soc 2 Type 2 certification, as well as the completion of the initial Soc 2+ audit, an advanced level of the Soc 2 Type 2 certification. Because NetDocuments is a single technology infrastructure and service accessed by all customers, firms achieve increased security and information governance from the security audits and compliance measures NetDocuments deploys across the global service, company, and regional datacenters.
• ndOffice™ 1.7 – NetDocuments’ embedded Microsoft Office application integrations allow individuals to remain within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to perform key document management functions including  opening, editing, filing, tagging, and versioning with backend processing and communication with the NetDocuments cloud.
• Release of 15.1, 15.2, 15.3, 15.4 – Per its agile development model, NetDocuments delivered four successful service releases, enhancing the software quarterly with hundreds of improvements and features based on customer-driven feedback through NetDocuments’ customer IdeaBank and ongoing customer product focus groups.
• The NetDocuments Marketplace – NetDocuments launched its Marketplace, a centralized location for third-party software developers to create apps that integrate with the company’s existing cloud-computing content management and collaboration services. The marketplace showcases apps that users can implement to streamline workflows and improve performance in managing their repository of documents and emails including products from Intapp, Workshare, Litera, DocsCorp, PayneGroup, Handshake Software and other leading companies.
• APAC Datacenters – The company deployed an APAC regional datacenter located in Australia to support the rapidly growing customer base. NetDocuments’ regional facilities now include the US, EU, and Australia.
• Channel Partner Ecosystem – NetDocuments includes a global community of over 70 Certified Partner organizations consisting of industry experts, consultants, and training organizations who consult, configure, and implement the service for new and existing customer firms.
• Market Activity – NetDocuments held over 35 regional meetings, partner events, and executive briefings educating the market on the key topics of information governance, data security, and the differences between on-premises, hosted and native Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud offerings.
• Client satisfaction - In addition to increased user adoption and a growing group of cloud reference sites, ILTA members independently recognized NetDocuments as one of four vendors (out of 101 total vendors) who provided ‘exceptional customer service’ as part of the 2015 ILTA/InsideLegal Technology Purchasing Survey and 2015 ILTA Technology Survey.

Heading into 2016, NetDocuments will continue to expand its market leading position in the areas of native cloud security, information governance and compliance; work with customers and the legal community at large to increase native cloud education and cloud DMS user adoption; and continue to support and champion its community of channel and technology partners. In Q1, NetDocuments will announce the release of NetDocuments version 16.1, ndSync™ for Dropbox-like device syncing, and NetDocuments OneDesk™ for improved third-party desktop application integration.

For more information on NetDocuments, please visit www.netdocuments.com.