Task Management Solution IssueBurner Sees Commercial Release

Sarah currently works as a writer for TechCrunch, after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to becoming a professional blogger, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.

IssueBurner, the combination task management and helpdesk solution from Webyog Inc. is now exiting beta and launching as a commercial product. The service, from the data management company behind CloudMagic and Visifire, was originally cooked up by the company’s developers as an internal solution to deal with their own “inbox overload” situation. Last year, the product was launched as a public beta and as since gained over 16,000 users.

With the commercial launch, IssueBurner will begin licensing its product on the freemium model. For 2 members and 2 groups, the service is still free, but silver ($19/month) and gold ($39/month) plans are now available for larger organizations.

The way IssueBurner works isn’t entirely novel: you create groups, assign them an email address and then those emails end up in the IssueBurner hosted solution, which is also used as an online helpdesk. Because people can’t seem to let go of using email for group communications, no matter what alternative solutions are presented, IssueBurner works on top of email instead of attempting to replace it. The expected workflow is that employees just cc: or bcc: the IssueBurner group address on those emails that should end up online.

If this all sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it is. To name just a few: CC: Betty, which later became Threadbox prior to its acquisition by MySpace, had the same idea. Back in 2009. More recently, Grexit launched a similar product for Google Apps earlier this year. Others that jump into mind:  Followup.cc, TaskForceApp and Nudgemail. It’s a crowded space.

To distinguish itself, IssueBurner’s offering combines its email archival ability with the basic functionality of a helpdesk product, complete with labels, prioritization capabilities, bulk issue management and a mobile interface. The look-and-feel is reminiscent of old Gmail – it’s a sparse but simple UI that ditches the bloat, which is a big plus in terms of efficiency.

Webyog was founded back in 2005 and has been profitable since, which speaks well for its ability to get products right. For that reason alone, IssueBurner may be worth a look for those in the market for a simple task management solution.

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