SaaS Collaboration Tools Take Off
Save your customers money while collecting some for yourself with the help of these hosted collaboration solutions.
By Rich Freeman†
Good news for channel† pros in search of hot new markets to conquer: Sales of software-as-a-service (SaaS) collaboration tools are climbing fast. Worldwide spending on hosted applications for managing and sharing content will rise 16.3 percent in 2009 to a little more than $2.5 billion, according to analyst firm Gartner Inc. Not bad given that Gartner also expects overall IT spending to drop 3.8 percent this year.
Why the brisk growth? Light up-front costs, low-stress rollouts, and a growing array of compelling solutions. Here’s a quick look at a few offerings in three categories: SaaS collaboration suites, file-sharing solutions, and wikis and social networking options.
RICH FREEMAN is ChannelPro-SMB‘s senior consulting editor.
| SaaS COLLABORATION SUITES | |||
| These solution bundles provide wide-ranging functionality at heavily discounted rates. | |||
| Key features | Pricing | Notes | Partnering Opportunities |
| GOOGLE APPS PREMIER EDITION††www.google.com/a | |||
| Includes:
• Gmail |
$50 per user per year | First launched in 2006, Google Apps has been catching on fast ever since. According to Google, more than 1 million companies use the product presently, and over 3,000 more join them every day. | Enrolling in the recently introduced Google Apps Authorized Reseller program entitles you to a discount (reportedly as much as 20 percent) off of standard pricing, along with other training, sales, and marketing benefits. |
| HYPEROFFICE COLLABORATION SUITE††www.hyperoffice.com/collaboration-suite | |||
| In addition to the usual document management, calendar, and intranet functionality, includes support for extranets, discussion forums, and opinion polling. Also offers access from any Web-enabled mobile device. | Starts at $44.99 a month or $431.90 a year for five users | HyperOffice may not have the name recognition of a Google or Microsoft, but it’s no stranger to the SaaS world. The Rockville, Md.-based company has been providing hosted communication and collaboration services for more than 10 years. | HyperOffice offers three partnering options:
• Resellers, who manage client relationships directly, get up to 50 percent margin on licensing. |
| LOTUSLIVE ENGAGE††www.lotuslive.com/services/engage | |||
| Offers integrated support for sharing files,tracking activities, and storing contact information. There are also instant messaging and Web conferencing apps and tools for collaboratively building graphs, charts, and data-entry forms. | Prices range from $10 to $55 per user per month | Part of IBM’s recently introduced LotusLive family of hosted services, LotusLive Engage is a key component of Big Blue’s emerging cloud computing strategy.
Unlike its Microsoft counterpart (see below), Engage provides a “white label” option enabling partners to attach their own branding to the service. |
Incentive sales commission program |
| MICROSOFT BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY ONLINE STANDARD SUITE (BPOS)††www.microsoft.com/online/business-productivity.mspx | |||
| Includes:
• Exchange Online (messaging and calendar) |
Starts at $15 per user per month; minimum five seats
All four applications are also available standalone, but buying them together nets you a 38 percent discount. |
Microsoft’s BPOS offers robust support for document collaboration, team intranet sites, blogs, wikis, RSS, and more. To the consternation of its partners, however, Microsoft doesn’t allow white label branding and insists on billing clients directly rather than through the channel. | Microsoft pays its partners 18 percent of first-year revenues and 6 percent annually thereafter. |
| FILE SHARING | |||
| Looking for something simpler? These affordable and easy-to-use solutions provide a central repository for storing and collaboratively editing files. | |||
| Key features | Pricing | Notes | Partnering Opportunities |
| DROP.IO††drop.io | |||
| Create file shares on the fly. Add content through the solution’s Web interface or via email, text message, fax, and more. Share content through RSS, Twitter, and other channels. | One share (called a “drop”) and 100MB of storage is free. Additional space sells for $10 per GB per year.
A more robust option called Drop.io Manager lets you centrally administer and customize multiple drops. A 20-drop package with 10GB of storage goes for $19 a month; 50 drops and 30GB of storage costs $49 a month. |
This slick tool supplements basic file-sharing functionality with interesting extras, like free conference calling and a “voicemail” service that lets you dictate information and then save it to your drop as an audio file. | Not available |
| MICROSOFT OFFICE LIVE††www.officelive.com | |||
| Share individual documents or entire workspaces with up to 100 people.
Stores up to 5GB worth of most common file types, as well as notes, tasks, contacts, and events. A free upgrade lets Microsoft Office applications save files to Office Live or open files from it. |
Free | Far more limited than Microsoft BPOS, Office Live provides useful if elementary functionality at a price that’s tough to beat. Channel pros can profit from set-up and customization engagements. | Not available |
| WIKIS AND SOCIAL NETWORKING | |||
| These solutions turn the core concepts behind Web sites such as Wikipedia and Facebook into business productivity tools. | |||
| Key features | Pricing | Notes | Partnering Opportunities |
| SOCIALTEXT††www.socialtext.com | |||
| Socialtext Workspace, the foundation of the company’s solution stack, supports collaborative document creation and employee blogging.
Socialtext People adds intranet social networking features that employees can use to profile their background, interests, and current projects. Socialtext Signals offers intranet microblogging, a la Twitter. |
Starts at $15 per user per month, with a 50-user minimum
There are also two small business packages for companies with fewer than 50 employees: 20 concurrent users for $99 a month or 50 concurrent users for $199 a month. Both require a one-year contract. |
Buoyed by the success of its wiki solution (the company says it has more than 5,000 customers worldwide at present), Socialtext has been steadily adding new, integrated applications. | Socialtext resellers receive discounted licensing, new product briefings, sales training, access to joint marketing activities, and premium support. |
| CONFLUENCE††www.atlassian.com/software/confluence | |||
| Create, organize, and manage enterprise wikis and blogs.
Notify users about updates automatically via email or RSS. Niftiest feature: Every wiki gets its own email address. Copy it on an email thread’s cc: line to create a permanent, searchable archive of important group discussions. |
The Enterprise Hosted edition starts at $149 a month or $1,490 annually for 10 users.
The Team Hosted edition (which has fewer features) starts at $49 a month or $490 annually for 10 users. |
Confluence is used by about 7,100 organizations in more than 94 countries, according to Atlassian Pty Ltd., the Sydney, Australia-based company behind the product. | Partners receive product discounts, priority support, customer referrals, and other benefits. |
