Comments on: What to Look for in Online Collaboration Tools for Small Business

By: Hannes Heckner

Hannes Heckner — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 06:22:58 +0000

I think whats really important is to reduce the number of tools in the company to a minimum. Otherwise people have to learn to much and the integration of different tools can be nightmare. So less functionality in favor of less tools.

By: Andrew Joseph

Andrew Joseph — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 06:56:02 +0000

Following searching Google I found your site. I think both are good and I will be coming back to you and them in the long term. Many thanks

By: Quaker 92

Quaker 92 — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 13:50:10 +0000

I believe this is a really good top five list. I like the fact that security was listed first. Many “free” options are lacking when it comes to security, as evidenced by the fact that the paid options from the same company have “enhanced security” listed as a feature.

There are so many good tools available that we decided to use a tool that targets my particular job function. I am Sales Executive and we use the Business Collaboation Network (BCN) by DRE Software, Inc. (www.dresoftware.com). They are a new player and they target sales and marketing professionals. They have announced to current clients that they will have full web conferencing capabilities added to the next major release (8/2010) and our price will not increase. This is a big deal for us since we use web conferencing all the time. To have it all in one app for one low price per month is a BIG deal.

They have a free trial and they are really flexible with their corporate plans. I highly recommend them.

By: Alessandro

Alessandro — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:03:46 +0000

You should try SambaJAM.

In my biased opinion, we have the best document library out there. Context menus like windows explorer, drag and drop, no waiting for endless pages to load, you can upload whilst you continue to manage your documents, you can preview documents online (images, office docs, videos), you can edit them online, send them as email attachments or links, assign them to workflows, comment on them, and more.

Soon enough you will even be able to create documents directly online as well as edit them collaboratively i.e. two people editing the same document at the same time. Not to mention the Tasks feature currently under development (we will be releasing a blog about it soon enough ).

Check it out.

By: Peter Inchley

Peter Inchley — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:07:56 +0000

Some great advice.

From the viewpoint of our business, one of the great things about the tools we use (http://www.ice3-portal.co.uk) is the fact that it can work from a subdomain of our company domain and can be branded with our corporate colours.

This means that our clients, partners are largely unaware that we are using a 3rd party solution.

That is great news for our business giving us an edge on our competitors.

What did we do before online collaboration?

Peter

By: John Media @ dedicated hosting

John Media @ dedicated hosting — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:03:49 +0000

It’s really nice list of tips when seeking online collaborators I’d really take note of these ones. Thanks

By: It’s Time for Online Collaboration Apps and Tools | Business Info - Bits, Bytes, And News

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:51:42 +0000

[...] businesses are more mobile that ever,” says the author of a new article, What to Look for in Online Collaboration Tools for Small Business. “No longer are we tied to [...]

By: SR

SR — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:25:25 +0000

Good points, though i would reorder the list as 1,3,4,5,2.

Sococo’s team space (www.sococo.com) is another innovative tool in this space. they offer virtual offices for every team member making it seem like communicating live. great design, features and very secure.

By: Gourab Nanda

Gourab Nanda — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:10:18 +0000

We use Basecamp a lot and I think it is quite simple for all types of users and it offers a great collaboration platform for virtual workforce.

MS Office Live is also useful as it has many useful features. Good to use if your organization has complex collaboration needs.

By: Bryn_OfficeLive_Team

Bryn_OfficeLive_Team — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:29:21 +0000

Like Penny mentioned, a great product for small businesses is Microsoft Office Live. Office Live allows you to store documents online as well as have multiple users collaborating on one document. Another great feature of Office Live is Small Business, which allows companies to build their own websites. It is template based, which means you do not have to have coding knowledge. It creates very professional websites as well as inexpensive web hosting fees, which includes a personalized website name as well as a company email address.

Check out some of the companies that are currently taking advantage of Office Live and to learn more about all it can do:
http://www.officelive.com/en-us/

Cheers,
Bryn
MSFT Office Live Outreach