Dublin software company ExSafe has completely overhauled its signature product, which secures and manages spreadsheets and other documents, in order to provide it as a service over the internet.
Rather than allowing spreadsheets, documents and presentations to be e-mailed, ExSafe ensures they are stored on a secure hosted service with web links for those who need access.
Chief executive Tony Prylowski said the company, which was founded in 2002, initially targeted hedge funds and other financial services groups that had large amounts of critical and confidential information stored in spreadsheets.
"Until May this year, we were primarily selling an enterprise version that customers would install and manage themselves," said Mr Prylowski. "The sales were taking a long time and it's very hard to raise investment on the back of sales which are 18-24 months away."
The five months spent redeveloping the product to offer it through the software-as-a-service model have also increased ExSafe's addressable market. Mr Prylowski said that although there were 150 million business users of Excel only five million of those were in very large companies.
ExSafe's product addresses the problem of data leakage, where increased use of mobile devices such as laptops means confidential company data is regularly carried outside the company.
In September, it was revealed that three spreadsheets containing personal data on 5,000 US customers of ABN Amro were shared on a peer-to-peer network when a former employee went online to download music.
"If ABN Amro had our software, this would not have happened," said Mr Prylowski.
While the software-as-a-service model is gaining traction internationally, ExSafe may have its work cut out selling its product in this way to Irish businesses, according to a new survey.
A study of European small businesses commissioned by Mamut Software has discovered that, while 82 per cent of Irish respondents were taking advantage of web-based services and business applications, eight out of 10 said they would still prefer to purchase and install business software locally.
