Editor
On November 7-8, 2024, Cybozu hosted its annual event, “Cybozu Days 2024,” at Makuhari Messe. During the keynote, President Yoshihisa Aono highlighted the company’s latest developments and a strategic shift towards generative AI integration.
Aono reported that kintone’s adoption has surpassed 37,000 companies, with Cybozu Office at 80,000, Garoon at 7,000, and Mailwise at 15,000. He also noted that Cybozu achieved top rankings in both customer and partner satisfaction surveys by Nikkei Computer, emphasizing a commitment to continuous product improvement.
Executive Officer and Development Director Teppei Sato discussed kintone’s growth, noting that 650 new companies adopt the platform monthly, creating approximately 100,000 new applications each month. The platform undergoes about 1.8 million configuration changes monthly, reflecting active user engagement in business process optimization. Release frequency has increased to approximately 120 updates per year, introducing features like process management flow visualization and formula auto-completion.
Under the “Cybozu NEXT” initiative, kintone is integrating with groupware functionalities. Developments include the “Email Sharing Option,” schedule integration with Cybozu Office, and the forthcoming kintone Groupware Plugin.
Asuka Yamada, Deputy Director of Marketing Strategy, introduced the “kintone AI Assistant” (tentative name), aiming to enhance data utilization and support application development and operations. This feature leverages AI to search within kintone and generate appropriate responses to user inquiries, with a limited beta release planned for January 2025.
For enterprise users, Cybozu has released the “Wide Course” license, enhancing portal and process management, and plans to introduce application analysis features. Additionally, a performance dashboard is in development to identify and address performance issues, and efforts are underway to enable external system data integration within kintone.
Chisato Matsumori, Head of Enterprise Sales, reported that 32% of domestic enterprise companies have adopted kintone, utilizing it as an information platform across multiple departments. A case study highlighted Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ use of kintone across global offices to streamline operations.
ChatGPT
