(Part 3 of a 3 part blog series “Are You Ready to Move Beyond Email?” which focuses on Online Collaboration Suites for SMBs. Click here for Part 1, which provides an overview of the online collaboration suite area, and here for Part 2,which provides tips for helping you determine if it’s time to make the move.)
Because the need to collaborate is fundamental to all businesses, many vendors see collaboration suites as an irresistable opportunity to expand their market footprint. As the cloud-based computing model has evolved, both traditional collaboration giants, such as IBM and Microsoft, who have long offered on-premise solutions, and a myriad of cloud-centric players have launched integrated online collaboration suite solutions designed to appeal to SMB needs and budgets.
The SMB Group recently conducted in-depth study, Moving Beyond Email: The Era of SMB Online Collaboration Suites, to compare eight online collaboration suite vendors, including Google Apps for Business, HyperOffice, IBM LotusLive, Microsoft BPOS, OnePlace, Salesforce Chatter, VMWare Zimbra, and Zoho Business. While all of these vendors agree on the benefits of integrated approach, they don’t always agree on what to include in the core suite. For instance:
- Some view having their own email client as an essential suite staple; others figure that most businesses are likely to stick with their existing email, and focus on integrating with other email clients. Some take a blended approach. Microsoft BPOS, Zoho Business, VMWare Zimbra, and Google Apps for Business include integrated email as part of their collaboration suites, and also integrate with other POP-3 and IMAP email clients. Meanwhile, Salesforce Chatter and OnePlace do not to provide email, focusing instead on integrating with customers’ existing email solutions. IBM LotusLive and HyperOffice offer their suites with and without email.
- Vendors are split on whether personal productivity tools (document, spreadsheet and presentation applications) need to be in their suites. Google and Zoho provide them; the rest do not (although Microsoft and IBM offer them separately).
- Standard storage limits also vary differ by vendor and by plan. For SMBs that store primarily email files, standard limits will usually suffice. But SMBs that store videos, podcasts, photos and other large files need tolook for solutions that include high storage limits or factor costs for additional storage into the equation.
- Most vendors we examined provide native support Blackberry and iPhone and devices compatible with ActiveSync, and have aggressive plans to extend device support. But Google and HyperOffice currently offer the most comprehensive native mobile support features, adding Android, Windows Mobile and Nokia into the mix.
Beyond this, vendors are distinguishing themselves by adding more value in four key areas: social networking, document management and web conferencing to tap into specific requirements, as shown on Figure 1.
In response to growing demand for and popularity of social media capabilities, vendors such as Salesforce Chatter IBM LotusLive, OnePlace and Google Apps have integrated significant social collaboration capabilities and “look and feel” into their suites. Meanwhile, although all of these vendors offer the basic ability to set up a shared drive to allow team members to post and share files, several go beyond this, providing a more structured virtual workspace to help people manage and organize documents and facilitate group authoring and version control. In addition, while IBM LotusLive and Microsoft BPOS include web conferencing in their suites, the other players provide web conferencing separately.
Of course, user interface is also critical–and especially for collaboration, because so many people will need to get on board. Users expect that it will be easy to figure out how inbox messages are sorted, how to upload and download files, grant permissions, use tracking controls, etc. All vendors profess to have an intuitive, easy-to-use and navigate UI–but the judgment about what makes a solution easy-to-use is often subjective. If you’ve been using traditional email for years, you may feel that Microsoft BPOS (which sports the familiar Outlook and Windows interface) or HyperOffice is spot on, while if you enjoy using Facebook and Twitter, you may prefer the more social media look and feel of solutions such as Salesforce Chatter, One Place and Google.
Since each workplace is likely to have a mix of people with a range of views on what’s easy and natural. The good news is that Web-based solutions and free trials make it easy for several people in your organization to try and compare a couple of different alternatives before buying to see what works best for most people in the company.
Figure 1: Key Online Collaboration Suite Differentiators
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Vendor |
Differentiators |
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Social Media
Document/project management
Other:
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HyperOffice |
Social Media:
Document/Project Management:
Web conferenci Optional web conferencing for up to 1,000 person rooms with real time document collaboration. Other:
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IBM LotusLive Engage
IBM LotusLive Complete Collaboration Suite |
Social Media
Document/project management
Web conferencing
Other
|
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Microsoft BPOS |
Document/project management
Other
|
|
OnePlace |
Social Media
Document/Project Management
Other
|
|
Salesforce Chatter |
Social Media
Document/project management
|
|
Zoho Business |
Social Media
Document/project management
Web conferencing
Other
|
|
VMWare Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) |
Social Media
Document/project management
Web conferencing
Other
|
If you are part of an SMB company that is actively considering whether to deploy an online collaboration suite, click on this link and I’ll send you a complementary copy of the full study.