HP has unveiled a cloud service that enables organisations to securely share and collaborate on files with colleagues, customers and business partners, while maintaining visibility and governance over content.

Called Autonomy LinkSite, it effectively integrates HP’s on-premise Autonomy WorkSite document and email management system with HP Flow CM, a cloud-based file-sharing and collaboration service. The result, according to HP, is an enterprise-grade document and email management system with the ease of use and simplicity of a consumer solution.

HP said the tool is due for early release to testers from mid-September, and is scheduled for full commercial release on or near 15 October.

HP LinkSite is the latest in a series of product launches aimed at tackling the problem of sharing content easily, while allowing an organisation oversight and control over the information contained within.

The problem, according to HP, is that workers expect to be able to share content freely as they do with consumer-grade services such as Dropbox, and are liable to resort to these if their organisation does not provide a satisfactory alternative solution.

Autonomy LinkSite addresses this by extending the traditional workspace from Autonomy WorkSite into the cloud, enabling users to share a single file or an entire project folder with others both inside and outside the firewall.

However, content uploaded to the cloud this way inherits all security properties set in Autonomy WorkSite, according to HP. All actions taken on content in the cloud are also reported via the Autonomy WorkSite audit trail, extending enterprise security and governance to the cloud.

Files shared via Autonomy LinkSite are synchronised across all employee devices, and can be accessed through any web browser, HP said.

Neil Araujo, general manager of Enterprise Content Management at HP Autonomy, said that organisations no longer have to turn a blind eye to workers using consumer file sharing services.

“Businesses now have a very attractive alternative that satisfies the needs of the users as well as the IT and compliance teams,” he said.

Pricing for HP LinkSite is expected to start at $19.95 (around £13) per user per month, depending on the length of contract, HP said. For larger enterprise organisations with 1,000 users or more, licensing is likely to be as low as $9.95 (around £6.50) per user per month, also dependant on length of contract and features selected.