The World of Collaboration and Storage of Business information has been expanded from SaaS like Google Docs to self hosted Free and/or Open Source Softwares. In 2006 the world of the Internet was very different from how we know it today. There was no Chrome, Facebook was taking taking their first steps and Firefox was the browser that starting to challenge Internet Explorer : coding a collaboration tool and thats too an online collaboration seemed really hard, there is no standardization and made the browser to lessen the complexity and provide the power that today makes them the main focus in the use of a computer.
The World of Collaboration and Storage : Google Docs to OwnCloud
Sam Schillace in that period is created Writely, a startup that aims to allow people to collaborate online writings, a “Microsoft Word” that runs entirely in the browser. The startup proceeded, the product worked and Sam is contacted by the founders of Box.net who arranged the acquisition of the startup, but a few weeks later Writely enters into the sphere of interest of Google who acquired to make it the base of the well-known Google Docs. Online collaboration tools, since 2006 has made ??enormous progress, just think of how Google Docs has grown up, the emergence of integrated solutions and computing power is now able to provide within a browser. BOX, a kind of professional version of Dropbox, in this scenario has demonstrated the ability to where to point the focus, sharing files online in the business is still being explored and with over 700 employees, this startup really seems to be the spearhead of the enterprise cloud market.
Today, even more the World has changed – Free own Hosting with an Free and/or Open Source Software. Good example can be OwnCloud.
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The World of Collaboration and Storage : Google Docs to OwnCloud
Unwittingly BOX.net is more open to collaboration, online editing of documents and their organization, all features that Google Docs has for some time but Box really the cloud service reference in the business arena. The biggest challenge ? The challenge is Platform as a Service like Red Hat OpenShift, Heroku Cloud, AppFog with free usage quota along with a bunch of great Free and Open Source Software Solutions. We published the article on Installing ownCloud on Rackspace Cloud Sites, obviously OpenShift can be used as alternative free hosting. If you read the article on OwnCloud Tutorial, you might find it too much about collaboration oriented than something like “Google Docs”. Do not worry; FengOffice, OpenGoo are just some examples of the exact thing you want. Firepad has some features those are not offered by any paid Software as a Service.
If you understand the Cloud Computing Service Models, you will perceive that; a segment of Collaboration Tool users will definitely love to use the own hosted software over the SaaS. That is actually happening now.
