More Cloud Collaboration Tools for You to Check Out

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by || 04/28/2011

“Cloud…” “collaboration…” two buzzwords you hear swirling around in the air. Which naturally raises an important question: What about cloud collaboration? And is there an app for that?

Glad you asked. Yes, in fact, there are quite a number of cloud collaboration apps. Information Week has a good list. Let’s run down a few:

Basecamp. By 37signals. It’s a bare bones Web site, but the client list isn’t, with the likes of National Geographic, Patagonia, Warner Bros. and Fox Sports using its project collaboration tool. Basecamp has about five million other users, supports multiple languages and was also designed for mobile devices such as iPhones and Android (News – Alert) smartphones. Available with a free 30-day trial option, 37signals sells Basecamp under three plans: Plus for $49; premium for $99, and max for $149.

OfficeMedium. Based on Drupal CMS open source software, it’s aimed at giving small businesses a tool to collaborate and manage projects “without spending unnecessary resources buying and managing proprietary software,” since it’s well-known how much small businesses hate doing that sort of thing. The product has contact management, events, tasks, calendars; file sharing and client integration for about six bucks per month per user, and a $1 per gigabyte fee.

SocialText. Founded in 2002, the company’s software integrates traditional customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource management (ERP) software with its social media platform. The cloud collaboration tool includes activity streams, user profile pages, instant messaging, group creation, workspaces, blogging, and user-defined control panels.

Central Desktop. More than 400,000 people use Central Desktop’s eponymous collaboration and project-management software to work on documents, share calendars and agendas, team-up on projects, and manage assignments. The software comes in free or basic, workgroup (with free 30-day trial) and enterprise.

Onehub. Claims more than 700 customers and 90,000-plus users. The tool has online collaboration and file-sharing software, specializing in creative industries and client service organizations. Sign-up for the application is free, and there’s a paid version ranging from $29 a month for the individual plan to $499 per month for the enterprise program.