SharePoint vs Alfresco

For Microsoft health and safety of the users - is the highest priority. And to prevent people from falling and being injured while working with SharePoint on the go, Microsoft just doesn't release mobile clients for SharePoint (except one for Windows Phone, which is used by very few users). But there are people for whom money means more than user security. Harmon.ie (the company known for its Outlook plug-in, which allows to collaborate on files stored in SharePoint) has released a mobile application for iPhone/iPad that works as a mobile SharePoint app. Now mobile users with smartphones and tablets can collaboratively edit documents stored in SharePoint, comment them, track the history of changes and versions, agree the documents. It's so easy and convenient that people do this even while walking and because of this already 2675 were injured due to falls and other accidents. The sufferers have already created a web site protesting against the new mobile app - www.DontSharepointWhileWalking.com

Recently we noted that for a long time there is no news about the progress of the enterprise software superstar - intranet system Microsoft SharePoint. And today the news appeared: SharePoint 2010 finally adds full support for the third-party browsers: Firefox, Chrome, and partial support for Apple Safari. Developers say that the limitations of these browsers didn't allowed to use all the bells and whistles of the SharePoint interface before. Wow! That's a really huge achievement of SharePoint developers. There is still no word about support of mobile platforms (except Windows Phone). But there is a word about social features. Jared Spataro, Microsoft's senior director of SharePoint product management recently said that they were carefully studying the opportunities of social networking technologies for enterprise collaboration and Microsoft's approach will be to increase enterprise social features in SharePoint. Looks like SharePoint is really in crisis.

In this case by "Dropbox for Enterprise" we don't mean the business version of Dropbox. The fact is that the expression "Dropbox for Enterprise" has become a new meme. The largest enterprise software vendors want to release a product under the label "Dropbox for Enterprise". That's how they say: "We want to create something like Dropbox for Enterprise" (watch the video). Recall, Dropbox - is the super-popular file syncing and sharing service, which has already attracted 50 million users thanks to its simplicity and multi-platform support. It's business usage is limited due to the strict corporate security standards. But employees still tend to use it bypassing IT admins, and that is why the enterprise vendors are standing in the line to become the Enterprise Dropbox provider.

Today, Microsoft has rolled out a new service Office 365, which is a reincarnation of the SaaS package BPOS. The name change was expected, since Microsoft critics have referred BPOS as "Big Piece of Shit" instead of "Business Productivity Online Services". But not only name is to be changed. The new service except SaaS versions Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online and Lync Online, will include the online office tools Office Web Apps. I.e. Office 365 can now be considered as a full-fledged alternative to Google Apps. The service will be available in 2 editions. Small Business Edition for companies with less than 25 users costs $6/user/month and includes the basic functions. Enterprise edition provides additional customization and administration features, full functionality and provides users with desktop suite Office Office Professional Plus with pay-as-you-go licensing. This edition costs from $2 to $ 27/user/month depending on configuration. Recall, Microsoft also plans to include its CRM and ERP to the SaaS suite. At the moment, Office 365 is in beta stage and will be available worldwide next year.

Just yesterday we talked about Sharepoint Workspace - the tool which allows to sync files between Sharepoint server and user's computer, and today the cloud file collaborative service Box.net (which is positioned as a Sharepoint alternative) released the similar tool Box Sync. This is a program that is installed on your computer and allows you to sync any folder in your online Box.net account with desktop. If you change any file in that folder, it will be immediately synced, and those users who have access to this folder - will receive an alert. For now Box Sync is only available for Windows and only in the paid (business) accounts. Versions for Mac and Linux, as well as the free version will appear later this year.

We have already mentioned that p2p collaboration app MS Office Groove was renamed to SharePoint Workspace and utilized as an offline client for Sharepoint. Now we have got the chance to see SharePoint Workspace 2010 in action and it appears that offline access to Sharepoint - is not the only function of this application. First, SharePoint Workspace can be used without Sharepoint - as well as MS Office Groove. I.e. you can create Groove Workspace (with files, calendar, discussions) and sync it with computers of co-workers or customers. However, the audio-chat and permission levels disappeared from the application. Recall that SharePoint Workspace is not sold as a part of Sharepoint Server, but as a part of Office 2010 Pro Plus.

Last week together with Office 2010, Sharepoint 2010 was officially released. Of course, this is an important event for Enterprise 2.0 industry, however, not so important as we expected. Because despite the fact that Sharepoint 2010 was introduced as a cloud solution, at the moment neither Hosted, nor SaaS version of Sharepoint 2010 are not available. Hosted version (in BPOS-D) will be available only by the end of the year. SaaS-version (Sharepoint Online) by the end of the year will will be available for beta testing and official release is expected only in mid-2011. (We included Sharepoint Online in our Top 10 cloud platforms for Enterprise, but apparently that was too early). And now about the positive moments: Sharepoint 2010 really contains a lot of improvements that will strengthen its (almost monopolistic) position of the intranet platforms market:

Alfresco's content management and collaboration system gained its big popularity thanks to the low pricing and availability of free open-source edition. But still it's pretty complicated solution that doesn't fit small business. But now Alfresco decided to fix this issue and released Alfresco Team which is designed for content collaboration in departments and small companies. It reminds Sharepoint Team Site or Box.net, but more functional and cheap. Users can create sites (workspaces) with different pages - document libraries, calendars, wiki, task lists, blogs, forums. Alfteso Team's functionality includes social tools (comments, ratings, Like buttons), activity streams, web-viewer (which lets you view even videos and audio files), mobile versions for iPhone and iPad, workflow-engine (implemented on Alfresco BPM), document converter (eg doc -> pdf).

Alfresco loves to make problems for IT giants by its altruistic approach to business. For several years, this company is exerting pressure on ECM market leaders (Microsoft, IBM, Open Text, EMC, Oracle) by providing high-quality free/cheap open-source system Alfresco ECM. And now, the company decided to build communism in another, related IT field - BPM (Business Process Management). The new Alfresco product - Activiti is absolutely free, open-source BPM system, distributed under Apache License 2.0. To develop this system Alfresco (traditionally) enticed executives from competing project JBoss jBPM - Tom Baeyens and Joram Barrez. They were helped by the SpringSource (VMWare) developers. In result they built light-weight, fast and free product that is intended to revolutionize the BPM market.

Document management systems (DMS) and related to them Enterprise Content Management systems (ECM) like all other IT solutions are gradually embracing Enterprise 2.0 technologies. This is a difficult move for them. Because DMS and ECM - are quite old and conservative technologies/systems and it's always difficult to change for old school. Besides the main DMS and ECM users are large companies and it's very difficult to upgrade them to the next level. Nevertheless, the progress goes on. Let's take a look on how the Enterprise 2.0 technologies are implemented in DMS and ECM nowadays:

Alfresco has released the new version of its commercial open-source ECM system Alfresco Enterprise 3.3. The main feature of the new version is integration with other content systems via the CMIS interface. Alfresco is the first ECM-vendor that added full support for CMIS to its product. Using CMIS business applications can easily access content stored in the Alfresco database. The new version includes integration with Drupal, Outlook and Google Docs. Previously, Alfresco also introduced the integration with IBM products (Lotus Notes, WebSphere Portal, Lotus Quickr and Lotus Connections). In addition to the new integration opportunities, Alfresco 3.3 provides enhanced web interface of collaborative tool Alfresco Share. It features improved access control system, record management, custom lists (like in Sharepoint - for example, tasks, activities, companies) and Google-like search query syntax. We also note the new Alfresco Web Editor that allows non-technical staff to create and edit pages.

Alfresco, the open-source ECM system is going to compete with Microsoft Sharepoint. The new version Alfresco 3.0 features the Web interface designed for collaboration and social interaction Alfresco Share. Its capabilities are very similar to Sharepoint: Document Library with a comments and tags, people search in addition to content search, Intranet / Extranet workspaces, activity streams, profiles and customizable home pages, calendars, wiki, blogs and forums. It also provides integration with MS Office via support of Sharepoint Protocol. In addition to the new collaboration tools the new Alfresco includes lightweight development tool Surf for designing user interfaces and automate them using Alfresco Web Scripts.

Long ago Adobe invented PDF - the format designed for document collaboration. Then for this format Adobe created a set of auxiliary tools. One of these tools, Adobe LiveCycle, was designed for building web forms that save entered information directly to PDF-files. And now, on the basis of this product and in partnership with Alfresco, Adobe has released its own ECM solution Adobe LiveCycle ES that will compete with MS Sharepoint, Open Text and Oracle Content Management. Alfresco - is a very ambitious company that is  going to revolutionize the ECM market ruled by Microsoft, IBM, EMC, Open Text, SAP and Oracle. Alfresco is well-known for its open-source strategy. And now they are partnering with the "big brother" Adobe. Adobe LiveCycle ES is intended to automate all paper work - from form input to document approval and executions. And everything is accessible via a web browser. The system functionality includes:

London-based Alfresco has integrated its open-source ECM system with the popular social network Facebook. With the new Alfresco application for Facebook employees can collaborate internally and with business partners in the social network. Application adds a tab to Facebook profile where user can upload documents directly from the ECM system. Documents in the profile can be organized into libraries (folders). In Alfresco you can also access these folders and add documents to them - they will appear on Facebook and vice verse. When a document is loaded to profile, user friends are notified and can download the new documents. Of course, it's recommended to share only public documents via Facebook.