BOSTON, Oct. 11, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ownCloud, the popular open source file sync and share project, released its latest free community edition today, adding cool new features like video streaming, mounting of third-party storage, like GoogleDrive and Dropbox, a presentation player and new address book and contact sharing.

ownCloud, Inc., the company behind ownCloud, also released the latest commercial versions today.

Built through active community development and support, the latest ownCloud also features significantly faster uploading, downloading and syncing of files - even very large files, greater and more granular administrative control and adds innovative features like sub-admins for groups - the ability to assign a sub-administrator to a group to handle account management, desktop fast syncing - which reduces server load and enhances the sync algorithm for a faster, quicker, better sync with far less load on the server, enhanced permissions - more granular permissions so end users can determine who can do what with shared data. The latest ownCloud also includes a new app to automatically update it and a basic HTML5 presentation program.

"ownCloud gives our community a great product, with the capabilities and features they need to control their data," said Frank Karlitschek, founder of ownCloud. "One of my favorite new features is the ability for admins and users to mount external storage. For the first time, ownCloud can provide a common sharing platform across a half dozen different storage back ends and combine them into one logical access point. The video streaming is pretty cool too."

Unlike simple apps like Dropbox and Box, which store data at remote third-party data centers, ownCloud can be deployed on a server user's controls or even on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) or home desktop as a server.

Major Enhancements

• Mounting of external storage: Administrators can now mount external cloud storage (Dropbox, Google, Swift, S3, etc.) and decide whether it is to be accessible by the entire user population, a group, or a specific user. Users can now do the same, providing the first ever file sync and share capability across multiple cloud services, using ownCloud as the single point of access.
• Faster syncing: Using a unique ID and algorithm, the sync mechanism now compares file and folder IDs to identify which to sync, rather than time stamps. This removes the need to have times in sync on desktops and servers, and has the added benefit of dramatically reducing the load placed on the ownCloud server.
• Sub-administrators for groups: Administrators can now assign one or more admins to groups on the ownCloud system, enabling ad-hoc group access and facilitating sharing amongst employees, and between employees, contractors, suppliers and partners.
• File versioning: Uploading a file with the same file name in the web interface will now generate a new version of the file and display the uploaded file as the newest version, further improving collaboration capabilities on non-connected ownCloud devices.
• Enhanced Sharing: Users can now provide more granular permissions when they share a file, including edit, delete and share rights, can set expiration dates for shared files, and can also set a password on the URL to access a shared link, and much more, all within a significantly faster and more scalable sharing engine.
• Calendar improvements - Importing and exporting of calendar events got a complete rewrite to fix compatibility issues, work with repeating events is now much faster.
• Syncing of shared address books: Shared address books can now be synced to other devices.
• Drag and drop contacts between address books: When several address books are used, contacts can be moved or copied easily.
• Impress presentation player: With the impress application plug-in - inspired by prezi.com - upload impress.js files to ownCloud and view presentations in a dynamic, fun and interactive manner.

With more than 650,000 users world-wide, ownCloud offers the ease-of-use of Dropbox, with the flexibility, sophistication and security that can only be provided by software installed on site. ownCloud users can host their own data sync and share services on their own hardware and storage, use popular public hosting and storage offerings, or both - true hybrid cloud storage.

About the ownCloud Community

ownCloud began at a KDE community event in 2010, aiming to bring greater flexibility, access and security to data in the cloud. ownCloud enables universal access to files through the widely implemented WebDAV standard, providing a platform to easily view and sync contacts, calendars and bookmarks across devices while supporting sharing, viewing and editing via the web interface. Installation has minimal server requirements, doesn't need special permissions and is quick. ownCloud is extendable via a simple, powerful API for applications. For more information, please visit: http://www.owncloud.org.

About ownCloud Inc.

Based on the popular ownCloud open source community project, ownCloud Inc. was founded in 2011 to bring greater flexibility, access and security to unstructured data in enterprises. Company headquarters are in Boston, with European headquarters in Nuremberg, Germany. For more information, visit: http://www.owncloud.com.

###

Joe Eckert,