Source: Computerworld

Three tools to improve collaboration in the enterprise

Find services that complement the SharePoint: a file transfer, for a live meeting and instant messaging and microblogging.

By InfoWorld / USA
We know what you're thinking, but beyond that first paragraph, you will not see SharePoint being quoted. It is true that SharePoint has become synonymous with "collaboration" in many companies, and is c ertainly an awesome product. But sometimes you find other tools in certain functions that SharePoint does not offer. Here are three: file transfer, live meeting and the internal instant messaging and microblogging.

File Transfer: Many companies are seeing the value of a document library in which they are secure and are easily available to be accessed and used in collaboration. But more and more, especially for large file transfers, people use USB devices and FTP servers not always safe to transfer the files.To avoid these routes, it can be considered as a provider Accellion, specializing in transferring large files. The goal is to increase collaboration through secure file transfer. This certainly will mak e the organization flow more smoothly.

You may wonder why not use the Document Library in SharePoint to send larger files. All SharePoint documents are stored as a bubble. That in itself is not a problem - in fact, the performance of "bubble" of SQL 2005 was "much improved," says founder and chief engineer of Docstree.com, Sheetal Jain.

However, Jain estimates that larger files (any more than 1 GB) may cause memory problems. You can use a NAS or SAN solution and just store links in SharePoint for that matter, but Jain says that doing so requires "careful planning, coding and security testing."

Live meetings: It is strange to use the term "live meetings", considering that Microsoft calls its product Webcast Live Meeting. But there are other tools that can be used for communication and collaboration in your company, depending on your needs. Especially when working with people in remote offices or alternative, we have a means of sharing faces with each other.

One company told me, "We like the use of Microsoft Live Meeting when it is because of the internal functions of registration and integration with Outlook. However, when we want to look more professional to clients externs, let the GoToMeeting, which offers the same features and has a more professional way. "

You must be thinking that GoToMeeting is the ultimate tool of live meetings, but no, she has a key resource: video conferencing, which has the Live Meeting. Some places use free tools like Skype for videoconferencing, but it is also limited and does not share. The best, of course, is to choose according to your needs.

Instant messaging and internal microblog: you can know what is an internal instant messaging, microblogging but may be something you only see in your social circle with tools like Twitter. In this space, you may want to use a product such as Microsoft Communicator, but it requires accommodation for their services.

For something smaller, try the Yammer, a tool that looks like Twitter, but only allows communication with people with the same domain e-mail. You can go through the site to post their 'yammerings' (which have only 140 characters) or you can download an application on Adobe AIR, which allows the use Yammer free browser.

Here are three ideas that can improve collaboration and communication with people. They are the key to success for any business. You need only decide which technology enters the needs and which product has the features preferred.