key people ranjith kumaran ceo 1 website www.hightail.com hightail formerly yousendit is a cloud service that lets users send receive digitally sign and synchronize files . yousendit.com and yousendit inc. were founded in 2004 ; the company renamed itself hightail in 2013 . the company s early focus was on helping users send files that were too large for email ; it started adding features and plug ins for businesses in 2007 . the service grew quickly and the firm raised 49 million in funding between 2005 and 2010 . the service can now be used via the web a desktop client mobile devices or from within business applications with a hightail plugin . in may 2015 the company launched hightail spaces designed to encourage creative professionals from conception of an idea to delivery . 3 contents 1 history 2 products and services 2.1 software versions 3 reception 4 see also 5 references 6 external links history edit hightail was founded as yousendit inc. in 2004 4 by three cofounders ranjith kumaram amir shaikh and khalid shaikh . 5 in its early years amir pursued advertising revenues jimmy vienneau managed business development francis wu created the graphic design including the logo while kumaran focused on the user experience and khalid did technical work . 5 by may 2004 the company had 300 000 users and was growing 30 percent each month . that september cambrian ventures invested 250 000 . 5 at first yousendit was mainly used to send large files such as photos or audio files which were too large for the file size limits set by email providers at the time . 4 6 7 5 million in funding was raised in august 2005 . afterwards there was a falling out between the founders . within a few years khalid and amir shaikh left the company 5 while kumaran stayed in a product management and marketing role . 8 in 2011 shaikh plead guilty to making denial of service dos attacks on the website for the yousendit service between december 2008 to june 2009 . 9 10 ivan koon took over as ceo and yousendit continued to raise a total of 49 million . 11 yousendit grew as file recipients saw how the service works reaching 100 000 paying users and 8.5 million registered users by march 2009 . 12 in january 2011 yousendit inc. acquired a developer of microsoft outlook add ons attassa and an iphone app developer zosh . 13 14 in may 2012 a former aol and yahoo executive brad garlinghouse was appointed as ceo . 15 he refocused the company on file sharing and remote document access 16 placing it in competition with dropbox inc. and box inc. 17 18 hightail began advertising against competitors dropbox and box with slogans like your files should be neither dropped nor boxed . 19 in january 2013 yousendit acquired found software a company that develops the found for mac application that searches for files on macintosh computers and connected networks . 20 21 in july of that year yousendit announced its rebranding as hightail to represent its move beyond file sharing and into file collaboration services . 22 23 new mobile apps for ios and windows devices were also introduced 24 as well as an unlimited storage option . 25 26 in september 2013 hightail acquired adeptcloud a security focused file sharing service for hosting files inside a corporate firewall . 27 28 in november hightail raised 34 million in additional funding . 29 30 brad garlinghouse resigned as ceo in september 2014 allegedly due to disagreements with the board of directors . he was replaced by co founder ranjith kumaran . 31 products and services edit hightail on iphone users of the hightail service upload a file to hightail s servers and recipients are provided with a link where the file can be downloaded . 32 33 users can also manage files in an online folder system 34 or create desktop folders that access online storage . 35 36 in addition to hightail.com the service can be used from desktop applications for windows and mac 37 or from mobile apps for ios and android devices . 38 there are also plugins for business applications such as microsoft outlook 39 and yahoo mail 40 that allow users to send files from within the application . documents can be signed digitally with hightail using a mouse or touch screen . 41 42 the service has a pay per use security feature 6 and files sent through hightail are encrypted during transit and while stored on individual devices or servers . 34 the consumer version is sold on a freemium basis 43 while a business product is sold as yousendit for business which was originally released as workstream . yousendit for business integrates with active directory and microsoft sharepoint . 44 the business version has additional features for corporate use such as remote data wipes on mobile devices service level agreements and controls for compliance requirements such as hipaa and pci . 45 46 as of 2013 the company has more than 40 million registered users in about 200 countries . most use its free service for 2 gb of storage while a half million pay for unlimited storage and additional features . 29 30 software versions edit yousendit for mac desktops in beta 2011 yousendit was initially known as a way for individuals to share personal files and images on yousendit.com . 4 47 in 2007 a corporate suite was released that had management and reporting features for business users . 48 the following year a tool for embedding yousendit into third party websites called sitedrop was introduced . 49 throughout 2008 yousendit added plugins that allowed files to be sent through yousendit from within applications like final cut pro 50 microsoft outlook 51 and adobe acrobat . 52 in may of that year a new release of yahoo mail included yousendit built in 40 which added a million yousendit users over the following two months . 53 in july yousendit s online folder management system and digital signing features were introduced in order to compete with dropbox . 6 54 the following month yousendit added applications for mac and pc desktops as well as ios and android devices . 38 in march 2012 yousendit released a separate product intended for business users called workstream which was later renamed to yousendit for business . 55 reception edit pc magazine gave the service a 4 5 rating . the reviewer jeffrey wilson found its app easy to use and noted its digital signing and cloud storage features . wilson reported problems when trying to use the digital signing feature with the phone held vertically and experienced occasional crashes . 56 toptenreviews gave the service a 9.5 out of 10 . toptenreviews praised the product for unlimited downloads and accessibility from a desktop laptop or other mobile device . 57 in benchmark tests the service took seven minutes to upload a 30 mb file compared to an industry average of six minutes . 57 according to a review in small business trends probably one of the most powerful features is the ability to sign digital documents . 58 a review in about.com said the service was easy to use and noted its features for password protection file tracking and interface branding but also pointed out that users can not copy themselves on files sent through the hightail outlook application . 59 a reviewer at maclife liked its synchronization and collaboration tools but had some complaints about a clunky user interface . 60 for the for business product pc advisor stated that dropbox had better customization while yousendit had the advantage of integration with sharepoint and active directory for corporate environments . 61 enterprise strategy group esg conducted a comparative review of vendors in the file sharing and collaboration market in 2012 . it gave an average score from an end user s perspective and a slightly below average score from an administrator s perspective . esg noted that the pricing model was expensive on a per user basis but its lack of caps or surcharges made it more affordable for heavy users . esg testers found it easy and secure but noted it lacked the auditing and workflow features of some competitors . 46 see also edit cloud storage comparison of file hosting services comparison of online backup services references edit board of directors . hightail . yousendit.com site info . alexa internet . retrieved 2014 04 01 . schuberth cromwell . yousendit cofounder narrows focus at hightail . silicon valley business journal . retrieved 29 july 2015 . a b c xavier jon october 22 2010 . yousendit delivers e files and rapid growth . bizjournals . retrieved january 14 2013 . a b c d helm burt february 28 2012 . a silicon valley tale of humiliation and revenge . inc. magazine . retrieved january 11 2013 . a b c gayomali chris july 26 2011 . yousendit now offering cheap unlimited dropbox style storage . time magazine . retrieved january 15 2013 . saitto serena november 19 2013 . hightail raises 34 million to finance international expansion . businessweek . access date requires url help bradley l. jones 14 april 2008 . web 2.0 heroes interviews with 20 web 2.0 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