British technology company raises the bar with new Intranet as a Service built on the Microsoft cloud

The BrightStarr team is proud to announce the launch of Unily; cloud Intranet as a Service, built on Office 365 and Windows Azure. This is a brand new cloud-based Intranet solution that enhances and unites Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint and Yammer, for greater collaboration and productivity in the enterprise.

Unily draws on BrightStarr’s eight years of experience in building and supporting award winning Intranets. Will Saville, CEO and Co-Founder BrightStarr stated:

“We’ve taken all our experience, expertise and knowledge in the digital workplace arena, and built a product that we think captures the essence of what people really need from a modern Intranet. Building on Microsoft’s cloud platforms has provided powerful underlying data platforms, allowing us to concentrate on delivering the things that really matter to end users, such as fantastic user experiences across multiple channels, a wealth of common Intranet apps, and a core set of API’s and connectors that make Unily scalable, extensible and very fast!”

Uniting the Microsoft cloud technology stack in a single digital location provides the connected tool sets that modern information workers need to be as productive as possible.

However, Unily is far more than an out-of-the-box Intranet solution, as Unily is delivered as a true SaaS model, encompassing a comprehensive set of ‘success services’ designed to get an Intranet up and running quickly, while promoting good governance and ongoing user adoption.

When it comes to enterprise technology the BrightStarr team understands that installing and configuring new software is just the beginning of the journey. We’ve realized that a good Intranet implementation must be underpinned by great support and consulting services that can identify issues, fix problems, provide governance, and ultimately drive user adoption. This is what delivers true return on investment for clients and what delivers an Intranet that users will love to use.

The BrightStarr team has taken a ‘Mobile first, Cloud first’ approach to Unily, not only ensuring it’s optimized to run on Office 365, but also boasting an excellent range of mobile options including responsive design. It is however, the Unily Native Apps for Windows Phone, Android and iOS that really raise the bar for mobile enterprise collaboration, which provide a fully functioning Intranet on the go.

Rich Paterson, CEO and Co-Founder BrightStarr, explained:

“We recognized early on that responsive design wasn’t going to provide a rich enough experience for a typical mobile user, and decided to invest heavily into fully functional mobile apps. There is no doubt that at some point mobile usage, even within an enterprise environment, will overtake that of desktop, and Unily will be well ahead of that curve.”

Rich continued:

“It’s been a really exciting year for us at BrightStarr, and being able to focus on a single product has been a great experience. We’ve effectively managed to take 80% of the features that clients ask for all the time and built them straight into Unily. There will always be a place for bespoke implementations of SharePoint, but if you are looking for a typical SharePoint Intranet, then Unily will get you up and running in 20% of the time and for a fraction of the overall technology and running costs.”

BrightStarr will continue to invest in Unily cloud Intranets and we are really committed to further expanding its capabilities, rolling out all the latest Office 365, SharePoint and Yammer features to support our customers, as well as pushing ahead with our own customer-led roadmap. Most recently BrightStarr CEO and Co-Founder Will Saville released this video blog sharing Unily’s brand new Windows 8.1 experiences for desktop, laptop, tablet and phone, with the promise of further exciting news to come!