Enterprise Collaboration Software

What is enterprise collaboration software?

Enterprise collaboration software is a collection of applications that allow employees to communicate and work together more efficiently. It can include tools such as an email client, group discussion and messaging systems, calendars, contacts, and document editing software. Collaboration software can be run from in-house servers, or as a software-as-a-service cloud solution. Ordinarily, organizations pay for a software license or a subscription to the applications.

How is enterprise collaboration software used by businesses?

Businesses use enterprise collaboration software to increase communication among their employees. The software boosts productivity and allows employees to combine their skills and resources to achieve greater results than they would by working alone. Collaboration software creates a collaborative working environment in which employees feel compelled to assist one another to achieve a greater result. It also removes the barriers created by physical location, as employees in one office can effortlessly work with those in another.

What does Google Apps offer to help collaboration?

An increasingly popular enterprise collaboration solution is Google Apps. Large organizations are adopting Google Apps for Business with great success. Google Apps is a cloud-based solution, which means freedom from servers, software, patches, and upgrades. It’s very easy to use, and costs just $50 per user per year.

Google’s flat rate gives all of your users access complete access to the core suite of Google Apps. That includes:

• Gmail, a popular email client that features Google-powered searches, the best spam filters, 25 GB of storage per user, and unique features like conversation views and chat.
• Calendar, an extremely usable planner with calendar and event sharing, the ability to easily create common resource schedules, and multiple-calendar overlaying.
• Contacts, an app that allows users to keep very complete profiles for all their contacts.
• Google Docs, a full suite of office productivity tools inside Google Apps, with the ability to share and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more in real time.
• Google Sites, a simple Google-hosted web page creator for organizing projects, team sites, and even intranets to share resources effectively.
• Google Video, a professional video hosting app for sharing videos within your domain.
• Google Groups, a discussion tool that permits its members to create and discuss topics, as well as send and receive email as a single entity.
• Google Apps Marketplace, a store with free and paid apps that allows administrators to access third-party apps that integrate seamlessly with Google Apps and can be instantly deployed to all or a subset of users.

To find out how your enterprise can take advantage of Google Apps, call us today!