Change of direction: Evernote is handing over control of its market to its partners.
Despite selling over one million products since 2013, Evernote is moving away from its market of real-world objects to focus on being a software company.
On Feb 3 the tech company best known for its consumer and pro-level note taking apps will be walking away from tangible, real-world products, such as notebooks, scanners, special Post-It Notes and bags in order to really focus on improving its core app.
However, that doesn't mean that Evernote Market will be shuttering like so many other tech ventures, because, according to Evernote, the platform has been a huge success. Helping to popularise the concept of the ‘analogue' app.
As well as 800,000 specially designed Moleskin books that can be scanned via a camera and imported straight into the Evernote app, the company revealed this week that over the past three years it has also sold 300,000 styluses and 20,000 document scanners.
Soon after Evernote's books went on sale, other tech companies, such as Adobe also got in on the act with Moleskin tie-ups that let artists sketch an idea with a real pencil then import it straight off the page into Illustrator as a vector file.
"Ultimately though, Evernote is a software company. Building and perfecting the Evernote experience is where we'll be focusing our future efforts," said John Hoye, Evernote's senior director of partnerships. "Instead of selling and fulfilling orders ourselves, on Feb 3, we will transition the Market to promote Evernote-integrated products made and sold by our partners at Adonit, Moleskine, and PFU."
When Evernote first arrived on the scene it did so with a war cry "Death to paper!" It wanted to be at the vanguard of replacing physical note-taking with a smartphone, desktop or tablet app. However, it soon discovered it had picked a fight it couldn't win and in 2013 started the Evernote Market.
"We learned that despite all of the digital notes we take and the paperless goals we set, we're still taking plenty of handwritten notes and continue to find value in having a quality scanner as a part of our work flow," said Hoye.
However, while it's clearly been a success, the suggestion is that the company has taken its eye off the ball so to speak in recent months and is now looking to up its game in terms of software. — AFP Relaxnews
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