If you've ever used an enterprise class scheduling tool, like Outlook with Microsoft Exchange, you will instantly understand the value proposition for Tungle. Tungle lets people across diverse organizations, without shared calendars, exchange free and busy information in order to coordinate meetings. Using peer-to-peer technologies, rather than a centralized server, it allows the same kinds of capabilities as an Exchange environment, but without the heavyweight investment in servers and IT infrastructure. Moreover, unlike Exchange, it allows this sharing to occur across the organizational boundary. With Tungle, I can coordinate a meeting with a customer or a board member, not just people inside my company.
The software is dead simple to use. After downloading, it installs itself as a button inside the Outlook 2003 toolbar. Clicking the button opens Tungle, which allows you to quickly see your list of Tungle contacts. Selecting a contact lets you see that persons free/busy times in the pop-out calendar drawer that appears to the left. To book a meeting simply select a time, press "book a meeting", and wait for an Outlook meeting request to pop up.
This past week, Tungle announced a $1.5 million seed round from Desjardin Venture Capital, JL Albright Ventures, and seed investor Alex Karakozoff. Congratulations to Marc Gingras and his team at Tungle. As Suzi Dingwall Williams noted, it's good to see some seed financings happening in Canada.
Sign up for the beta at the Tungle website. Current beta's require Outlook 2003 and Windows XP. Once accepted, you have 5 tokens to share Tungle with your business associates, and start peer-to-peer scheduling.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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