Real-time, interactive collaboration in this digital age has become a buzzword among a lot of individuals, start-ups, digital enterprises and corporations in general. Of course within technology intensive markets such as Asia Pacific many corporate companies have a diverse geographical presence and pair up with teams working locally within the country as well as globally. Today, digital collaboration has become a fundamental part of everyday life for most of us in our personal, and work life.

For a lot of creative individuals, companies, and businesses across the web, effective collaboration is a key thing that drives effective work. Especially, interactive collaboration plays a big role to help individuals brainstorm and interact with various members across different locations.

Yes, cloud-based productivity tools such as Prezi, SlideRocket, SlideShare, Google Apps and Google Docs have become a part of everyday life, but there are aspects of a collaboration that go beyond what these have to offer. I've myself been part of a couple of start-ups, some small, some large corporate organizations which were truly active when it came to working on various tasks through online collaboration. One of the major challenges we faced was severe communication lag because our primary communication would always rely on good old e-mail, and bulky attachments.

When online communication elements are involved, and most importantly when one needs to digitally interact with others or with peers, it is always a challenge to express your thoughts and collaborate effectively in order to get the job done to everyone's satisfaction.

This is the challenge which a Japan-based startup, Docs9 is looking to address. Docs9 offers a high-grade secure, private cloud-based platform to support online digital collaboration effectively. Contrast to how today interactive collaboration works on expensive industry tools such as Polycoms, Cisco's Webex, Adobe's Captivate, Google Docs, Docs9 took it to the next level by looking at various collaboration needs to share, and narrowed it down to essential real-time communication between cross country members, global teams, customers, teachers, professors, students, and users across various locations.

Interactive presentations with the Docs9 is most effective form of collaboration so that users can avoid unnecessary to-and-fro e-mail exchanges, use screen-sharing alternatives, or in extreme cases verbally communicate offline.

Docs9 is a great, simple, and easy to use because it works purely inside a browser. Any device can be used, and there is nothing to install or configure. Some of the best features include:

Real-time presentations: Participants can simultaneously view what's being presented in real-time by simply opening the presentation link in their favorite browser. The host runs the presentation by simply swiping through the pages, while participants view latest page instantly in real-time and dialogue, discuss on the topic immediately.

Any device, Any browser: Remote participants can use any device that has an Internet connection, and a browser. Presentations can be viewed like you're flipping the pages of a book. Popular browsers such as Google's Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, Safari, Internet Explorer even upto extinct Internet Explorer 6.0, even some arcane browsers such as Slimbrowser, Maxthon work with same ease, and experience. The experience on Tablets is even more mind-blowing.

Broad document support: Robust, and decent support for Microsoft Office, Apache's OpenOffice, Google Docs makes it alot easier to present to a wide variety of audience. Enterprise level documents such as Microsoft Project, Microsoft Visio are supported as well that makes a collaboration intensive, design focused, project oriented activities much easier across a variety of teams. The most appealing feature was support for any documents created in previous versions of these softwares. This has been received very well by enthusiasts still using older versions of office productivity software.

No install, zero configuration: This has been a killer feature for most of the users.Most of the existing products require some sort of installation, or configuration, but with Docs9 focus on a pure out-of-the-box browser based collaboration, avid users who spend time online have been able to increasingly spend their focus on effective discussions.

I8ln ready, optimized pages: Use any language in the world, rich-graphic intensive pages, to heavy text-oriented material - everything remains crisp, legible on both high, and low resolutions in Docs9.

Experimental text/voice chat: Although this support is yet experimental and not yet released to public, this aims to give you the illusion of being face-to-face with your participants, while you discuss sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop, or even en-route to your next holiday destination.

The key feature that differentiates Docs9 from the rest of the products in the market today is the focus on the instant, interactive collaboration. With the goal to take online-collaboration to the next level, instant real-time interaction is what makes Docs9 a superior alternative to Polycoms, Cisco's Webex, Adobe's Captivate, Prezi, SlideRocket, SlideShare, Google Apps and Google Docs. Some users are already considering Docs9 as a serious replacement for their existing collaboration tools in use so far.

Docs9 already took the right steps by appealing itself to a wide range of users, hence, the intuitive simplicity in user interface is remarkable. The interface is simple, and above all anyone using it for the first time got started with ease. The attention to detail, and responsive HTML5 user interface separates out Docs9 from rest of the market where a constant flurry of installations, app downloads, logins, complicated setups are required. Docs9 simply works right out-of-the-box!

The target audience is wide-ranging from online virtual classes, conferences and webinars, to IT companies that have satellite teams across the world. Essentially, any two individuals wanting to collaborate interactively can get started in a matter of few seconds. The user base has been ever so constantly increasing in many different countries.

Currently, Docs9 is working on integrated Audio support so you can expect voice enabled presentations very soon. At the moment, Docs9 recommends users to use VoIP alternatives such as Skype, or Google Talk. With growing popularity of Docs9, some savvy users are suggesting API-based integration with other tools that is under discussion.
I'm sure as Docs9 moves on, this innovative start-up is something to keep an keen eye on in terms of how it grows, and shapes up. It has an omnipresent market wide impact, and is already stirring up a potential ripple across the digital industry horizontals, and verticals for a considerable time to come.
If you have used Docs9, do let me know what you think and share your feedback.