UPDF, that positions itself as a comprehensive tool for creating, annotating, converting, reading, and organizing your PDF files, is now available for Mac, iPhone, iPad. It offers advanced features such as image management, link editing, and page formatting, all within an all-in-one solution that’s accessible to everyone. AI is now at the heart of UPDF, providing absolutely unprecedented functions. For instance, you can ask the tool to summarize a complete document, explain it in simpler terms, or translate it clearly while maintaining the context. UPDF allows you to convert documents into a wide range of common formats, including: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and CSV. Additionally, character recognition is included in the program and allows you to transform any image into text via advanced tools. You can also select different formatting for each document (such as 1 or 2 columns), and this is available in 38 languages.

OpenAI has introduced a new method to interact with ChatGPT - an interface it calls “canvas.” The product opens a separate window, next to the regular chat window, with a workspace for coding projects. Users can create code directly in the canvas, then highlight sections of the work to have the model modify. Canvas will be available for ChatGPT Plus and Teams members. The new interface offers comparable features to Anthropic’s Artifacts, launched in June, and the viral coding companion, Cursor. OpenAI is racing to match competitor offerings, and release entirely new capabilities in ChatGPT, as a way to grow its paid user base.

Microsoft has launched the standalone Microsoft Office 2024 suite that in particular features new version of Outlook for both Mac and PC. Outlook 2024 offers enhancements to search so you receive more relevant search results: messages, attachments, contacts and calendar entries. This newest version also provides additional tools for organizing online meetings, including the ability to automatically shorten them in time. Mac users can now also personalize left and right swipe gestures in the email list. If you need Outlook, you’ll have to buy the $249.99 Office Home or Business 2024 package, which also includes the rights to use the app for commercial purposes.

Commvault, the data protection and management software firm, has acquired data backup and recovery provider Clumio. Commvault CEO Sanjay Mirchandani views Clumio as a complement to Commvault’s existing “cyber resilience” solutions for software built on AWS. Now, he says, Commvault can provide enterprises with greater options to safeguard and restore their data and cloud-native applications. AWS-dependent or not, the data backup and recovery industry is enormous, which undoubtedly influenced Commvault’s acquisition decision. According to market research firm KBV Research, the global data backup and recovery market was valued at $12.9 billion in 2023, growing at an annual compound growth rate of 10.9% from 2017 to last year.

Salesforce announced a new AI visual analytics platform, Tableau Einstein, to help scale and enhance data-driven workflows. It incorporates a vast technology stack to improve modern data pipelines, such as AI, autonomous digital agents, and cloud services. Tableau Einstein allows data experts and analysts to create semantic models based on real-time client data. It also has a dedicated marketplace where professionals can share their analytical resources within a business. Moreover, Tableau’s integrated marketplace and APIs further facilitate internal collaboration by enabling different team members to work across various data assets, such as sources, models, visualizations, and dashboards, in a streamlined drag-and-drop workspace. Salesforce integrates autonomous and assistive agents via Tableau’s Agent and Pulse services, providing the AI framework for helping agents identify mission-critical metrics and distribute those metrics to other applications such as Slack, email, and Salesforce clouds.

Workday is purchasing Evisort, an AI-driven contract management platform. Evisort will contribute to Workday’s expanding collection of AI-related acquisitions, which began with HR analytics firm Identified in 2014. In 2018, the company acquired SkipFlag, developers of an AI knowledge base that builds itself from an enterprise’s internal conversations. Evisort provides AI-powered modules that enable customers to assess documents like revenue contracts, asset agreements, and supplier invoices for things such as omissions and mistakes, and receive suggestions on document language. Evisort also helps emphasize key elements in documents such as unclaimed benefits in supplier agreements, assess document language against historical standards, and automatically alert customers of significant upcoming file-related dates (e.g., contract renewals).

Automation and IT monitoring company Progress has obtained file management platform ShareFile for $875 million. ShareFile was created in 2005 by Jesse Lipson, a self-taught developer. The platform had reached 40 million users and was bought by Citrix in 2011. Citrix continued to provide ShareFile as a separate service, as well as an integration for several of its enterprise-focused products. In 2023 Cloud Software Group, a holding organization owned by Citrix and data integration provider Tibco, acquired ShareFile. Today, ShareFile offers a variety of business-oriented file-sharing tools and services, including a system that lets clients create custom-branded, password-secured portals for files (similar to features from Dropbox and Box). It also provides e-signature services, compliance clouds for healthcare and financial records, and allows the transfer of large files (like WeTransfer but in a secure fashion).

Salesforce has acquired Own Company, a provider of data management and protection solutions, for $1.9 billion. Own is Salesforce’s largest acquisition since purchasing Slack for $27.7 billion in 2021. Own, established in 2015 as OwnBackup (the company rebranded last October), offers a variety of enterprise-oriented data backup tools and services such as automated backup and disaster recovery. The original concept was to utilize software-as-a-service vendors’ open APIs, including Salesforce’s, to extract and safeguard data from a company’s applications. In addition to Salesforce apps, Own supported SaaS applications hosted on AWS and Microsoft. Own has nearly 7,000 clients and hundreds of employees. The company provides a suite of data archiving, seeding, security, and analytics capabilities that have significantly evolved beyond the company’s initial offerings.