cyn-in, a web based service that lets enterprise workers easily build, share, manage and publish documents, media and files within a secure hosted online environment, has just gone live.

I’ve been using the new service from the India-based company Cynapse, to work with some colleagues for the past week as part of a sneak preview and I have to tell you I am seriously stoked.  (For the benefit of the nice folks in Mumbai, “stoked” is a surfer’s expression of approval that tells you the speaker has just spotted the mother of all waves.) 

cyn-in is, by far, the easiest collaboration tool I’ve ever used (other than e-mail), thanks mainly to a brilliant job of interface design.  Unlike software designed by geeks for geeks to show how many cool features can be tacked on, cyn-in is designed for non-tech users who want to make as few decisions as possible to accomplish their work.   

When users log-in, this is the menu they see: (Only administrators see the Administration button). 

  

From this point, here is what you can do: 

• You can click on “My Dashboard” to see what other people have done that concerns you since the last time you checked. 
• You can click on “New Note,” which will open a Word-like application, give your new document a title, and write, paste-in or attach any kind of file and upload it.
• You can then do one of four things:  save it in your personal space where only you have access to it; save it in the shared space and designate the other users who can have access to it and work on it with you; save it to the intranet where everyone on your company’s system has access to it, or save it to the Web where everybody in the world can see it.

That’s all.  Build.  Collaborate. Manage. Publish.  Just like it says in the literature.  cyn-in is a small miracle of simplicity and elegant design and a joy to use.

There are several other elements that strike me as extremely well-planned and designed. 

The entire process of signing up for the service, arranging payment, and setting up individual accounts is so easy that it requires no technical assistance or customer service at all.  Any authorized person who knows how to buy a book from Amazon can do it.

Another thing that grabs me about cyn-in is more an impression than something I can put my finger on but the whole infrastructure feels mature and stable, like something that’s been around forever.  There is a lot of Flash and other groovy stuff going on under the hood but the user’s perspective is nothing but a smooth ride.  Perhaps, that’s because Cynapse has spent the past five years building toward this next generation collaboration platform.

The one thing it doesn’t have that would make it the collaboration killer app is real-time search.  That’s why I’m so excited about future versions of System One which I think is moving quickly toward the goal of doing it all. 

But, this is cyn-in’s day to shine.  With its inherent stability, its no hassle hosting and management, and its brilliantly simple user interface, cyn-in is destined to be a big winner in the collaboration space.  At $30 a seat per user a month, this is a one heck of a competitive product.