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Free Collaboration

Peter Leshaw, who works for Enterprise Development Corporation, a nonprofit technology organization in Florida, spends far more time outside his office than in it. He, like the other experts who staff EDC, relies on HotOffice, an on-the-Web collaboration suite, to stay in touch. "[HotOffice] has trimmed a lot of time from my day," Leshaw says. "Rather than calling the office for one of the administrative documents we all share, it's easier to log in to HotOffice and access the documents there." All this is possible without physically networking the organization's machines.

By letting users select a familiar browser as the interface, Web collaboration suites like HotOffice simplify operation. There's no new software to learn, just Web-based forms to figure out. "A non­tech-savvy person can do great things [with these tools]," says James Eron. As chief information officer for the U.S. Amateur Ballroom Dancing Association, Eron helped the group get connected via a free collaboration site using HotOffice. "One of the officers is not particularly computer literate, but she publishes more documents [for sharing] than almost anyone else," he notes.

To find out whether these tools are as wonderful as Leshaw and Eron claim, we looked at four of them: DayTracker, HotOffice, Schedule Online, and WebEx. And we discovered that they're not all created equal.

You Gotta Have This

Though new collaboration sites pop up on the Web with increasing frequency, they share some digital DNA. All, for instance, sport organizer-like tools, including at a minimum a scheduling calendar and an address book. Most also toss in a to-do list, discussion boards, and other features. HotOffice and Schedule Online even add synchronization with Microsoft Outlook or with handheld PalmPilots.

In most instances, all or part of the workgroup can share these organizational tools. By setting up privileges, the administrator (typically the first person who signs up for the service) allows others to do such things as enter changes in the calendar or access an address book.

The good collaboration tools, however, go beyond basic schedule sharing. Indeed, many businesspeople we talked to considered document sharing the most important feature of an online workgroup tool. By uploading files to a Web server, users publish documents that others can share by downloading to their computers. Of the sites we looked at, only DayTracker lacks this service. But HotOffice takes the document-sharing prize: Not only does it upload files via a secure server--thereby ensuring that no hacker can intercept private and possibly business-crucial information--but it's the only free service that permits users to search for documents by keyword.

Another sophisticated tool is real-time file sharing, which enables several people to view and annotate documents simultaneously and even to share running applications like Word or PowerPoint. But of the four tools we reviewed, only WebEx provides its own real-time collaboration.

The Price You Pay

Of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Like a lot of other free services on the Web, some collaboration sites make their money by bombarding you with advertisements. HotOffice, for instance, sticks banner ads at the top of every page. If you love certain collaboration tools but don't want to expose your employees to ads, you can buy ad-free versions of the software. Both HotOffice and Schedule Online offer such an arrangement. DayTracker carries no ads in the first place.

WebEx takes a different approach by getting rid of ads and limiting the functionality you get for free. If you want to get together with a group of more than four people and collaborate for longer than 10 minutes, WebEx will start charging.

Here's a blow-by-blow account of the collaboration tools we used.

DayTracker.com

SUMMARY

PRO: Can create private client groups, easy to add anyone to the collaboration. CON: Lacks file sharing and can't support real-time collaboration.

DayTracker doesn't win the blue ribbon as a collaborative tool. Though it includes the basics--a group calendar, an address book, and message boards--it doesn't let you share files, conduct chats, or provide Net-style document or application collaboration.

DayTracker's most striking feature is its ability to segregate projects by "groups," a term it uses to mean concept- or idea-specific content. You build groups for each project or client and then invite people to join a specific group. Basically, this group function is a slick privacy feature, separating information so Client A sees the calendar events, contacts, and discussions you want her to see, but not the content you've arranged for Client B.

DayTracker doesn't have tools like file sharing and chat, but neither does it bombard you with ads or slap any restrictions on how much data you can stick on its servers. Unfortunately, that could change. DayTracker.com is being purchased by FranklinCovey, makers of the Franklin Planner line of paper-based organizers. At press time, Franklin hadn't announced any changes, but group scheduling will probably remain DayTracker's focus.

HotOffice

SUMMARY

PRO: Provides a full suite of collaboration tools, includes excellent file-sharing features. CON: Maximum 40MB of free shared file storage.

HotOffice recently unveiled its free Web service after years of honing a paid version of the software. So it's no wonder that HotOffice is the most polished and feature-rich collaboration site of the four we looked at. It combines the most comprehensive set of tools--including Web-based e-mail, group scheduling, contact and document sharing, chat space, and threaded discussions--with an easy-to-use interface.

File sharing may be HotOffice's best feature. You can publish files for group consumption by uploading them to HotOffice and then adding descriptive text to each file so users know in advance what they're downloading. Another outstanding convenience: A search engine is available to help users dig up files by keyword. Users can either view those documents within the browser--HotOffice converts them to HTML format on the fly--or download them for later review.

But HotOffice has some negatives, too. One drawback is that you must explicitly define all users before they can join you--there is no virtual office or directory-like listing for customers to browse. A second (and more frequent) annoyance involves HotOffice's tendency to bombard you with advertising. And finally the service limits the amount of free storage you get to 40MB for your entire company (you can, however, pay for extra storage at a rate of $2.50 per month for each additional 20MB).

Schedule Online

SUMMARY

PRO: Supports basic file sharing; guests can view calendars without having to register with the service. CON: Forms for many tools are crude and can be confusing.

The name of this service says everything you need to know about it. Though Schedule Online is stuffed with collaboration tools--just real-time document sharing and message boards are missing--only its online meeting and resource calendar is worthwhile.

Schedule Online stresses its calendar, which can be shared by designated users and viewed by specified guests. The arrangement means you can give your customers access to the calendar by setting up guest accounts for them. They can then view the calendar without going through Schedule Online's registration. The calendar offers other time-saving shortcuts too. To schedule a meeting, for instance, you click a time slot and enter the particulars.

On the downside, many of Schedule Online's other tools have crude forms or lack extras that some of the other free collaboration sites provide. For example, the site's document publishing tool allows you to control file access, but it displays a bare-bones list of files on the server and won't let you rename the file or add descriptive text.

WebEx

SUMMARY

PRO: Offers real-time application and document sharing. CON: Free application sharing is limited to 10 minutes per session, users can meet with only three others at a time.

Though WebEx does have online office options, with group calendar, an address book, and file sharing, its specialty is its slick virtual gatherings. At WebEx meetings--designed to accommodate up to four people--participants can cooperatively view and annotate documents, exchange chat messages, give slide-style presentations, and run an application on one PC that shows up on the displays of the other attendees.

Other services rely on downloads for sharing documents, but WebEx stresses dynamic meetings where everyone can contribute simultaneously. The person running the meeting loads a document, Web page, or application, and the other participants can view it on their monitors. At any time during the meeting, the host can transfer control to another attendee, enabling that person to display documents. Meanwhile, anyone who likes can type comments into the chat window available for that purpose.

When you review documents in real time or share applications across WebEx, the response time--the amount of time it takes for the screen to redraw with changes--depends on the speed of your Internet connection. But even when we used it over a standard 56-kbps analog connection, WebEx continued to perform with spectacular speed.

For most meetings, the free deal should suffice, but if you find that you need to meet with more than three others or if you expect to host an application-sharing session for longer than 10 minutes, you must provide a credit card up front and pay 15 cents for each meeting minute (a new fee structure should be out now).