ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it has become the first Japanese company to execute a sales representative agreement with Ninian Solutions Ltd (headquartered in London, United Kingdom; Alastair Mitchell, CEO; hereinafter “Ninian Solutions”) to embark on the sale of Huddle, a SaaS-type project information sharing service supplied by Ninian Solutions.

While there are many types of groupware for matters such as sharing schedules and booking meeting rooms, nearly all of them are for internal use. Furthermore, ordinary project management services place process management at the center of the service. However, Huddle is an SaaS-type service that, in addition to process management, focuses on the sharing of information regarding projects, allowing for effective project progress among both internal and external project team members. Huddle’s features include a whiteboard, task management, discussion functions, web conferencing and file sharing. Huddle can be accessed from anywhere in the world with internet access. Usage fees are charged on a project-basis, known as workspaces, making for fixed low costs irrespective of the number of users. It is also compatible with seven languages – English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese.
ITOCHU has acquired the sales representative rights of Huddle, and will begin supplying the service on Cloud Gateway, a cloud portal website that ITOCHU set up in August 2010. Since Huddle was launched as a service in the United Kingdom in 2006, it has been adopted by various companies, mainly in Europe and North America, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small- to medium-sized firms. ITOCHU aims to sell Huddle to a wide range of businesses in Japan, including global Japanese companies, foreign companies with offices or branches in Japan, and domestic small- to medium-sized firms. ITOCHU, as a general trading company that works closely with group companies, will hereafter make use of a network and promote the development of a cloud service.

Company profile of Ninian Solutions Ltd

Name	Ninian Solutions Ltd
Representative	Alastair Mitchell
Address	Gemini House, 180-182 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3TQ UNITED KINGDOM
Established	2006
Website	http://www.huddle.com/