In a market heavily dominated by software giant Adobe, it’s no mean feat for a small company founded in Melbourne to set their sights on becoming a legitimate competitor.
Yet that’s exactly what Nitro is aiming for, CEO Sam Chandler told Dynamic Business.
Founded in 2005 in Melbourne, the business is now headquartered in Silicon Valley with 120 staff and an annual revenue of $25 million.
Largely working off the ‘freemium’ model, Nitro Pro is now considered an alternative to Adobe Acrobat. The free online conversion services allow users to create PDFs and convert PDFs to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint – already 50 million users have downloaded the software.
Applications
For any business which regularly has to go through the arduous process of printing and signing, then scanning and emailing back a document – here’s the rub you may not have known.
An electronic signature is as legally valid as an ink signature.
What’s more, Chandler likens an e-signature to a digital fingerprint. “If somebody signs using Nitro Cloud it’s actually more secure than an ink signature – the IP, the type of device used, can all be tracked, and so if it was ever disputed you could prove it,” Chandler said.
Officially launching on October 8 – the new Nitro Cloud means documents can be easily shared, analytically tracked, and access can be revoked. Documents can be signed in the cloud – either pasting in a picture of your signature, or signing it ‘live’ with your mouse.
As to making a splash in the market, Chandler said 400,000 businesses worldwide are using the Nitro suite, and the products cost almost half that of Adobe.
