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What's the best solution for building an Intranet and virtual workspace?

Anybody care to recommend a good out-of-the-box solution for building an Intranet and virtual workspace for a team that works in multiple locations?

Currently we are using Google Apps for Business. But I wonder if there's a better solution out there, that's still inexpensive?

14 Responses

  • Jun 11, 2009

    Moderator

    Excellent question, Anita. Are you finding you have particular challenges in managing your team with your current applications?

  • Jun 12, 2009

    PAUL ROSENFELD

    Well Anita I wonder if the question is best asked "what's the best solution for collaborating on projects" or some other slightly more specific way? Asking it this way implies a solution that I'm sure is best suited for what the company wants. For instance, at my new little company (by the way we know so many of the same people, nice to meet you :-)) fanminder, we use Google Docs for keeping a) list of marketing priorities b) team member critical info and c) list of beta participants and d) simple wiki-type doc for competitive links. In another company I work with, they use Basecamp for all emails, file sharing, and calendaring. Back in Fanminder, we use box.net to keep all our docs stored and break them into folders like "images" and "shareholder docs" and "business research." So I'd think each of these uses constitutes what people might want from an Intranet but I've never considered Intranet solutions per se, as the best solution. Hope this helps! Paul@fanminder.com...maybe one day

  • Jul 17, 2009

    Principle

    Another option is Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server. This can be setup to run locally on a server in your office. Or it can be purchased as a hosted solution. While the solutions mentioned by FANMINDER are great as well (We are actually a Google Apps reseller) the nice thing about Sharepoint is that it integrates very tightly with Microsoft Office. So if you are running Office 2003 or 2007 as your office suite, it may be worth a look. Prepare to pay a bit more for Sharepoint than you would for other solutions though.

  • Jul 17, 2009

    Executive-Director, IAPAM

    Hi Anita, We use Google Docs (free) to share our documents. We also use DropBox (free for up to 2GB of data) to share and replicated files to all our employees and contractors (allows you to control who see which folders you want to share). We also use CentralDesktop to manage projects (again free for the basic version). You may also want to look at using Acrobat.com it allows for free file sharing, and free video conference calling.

  • Jul 18, 2009

    Creative Director

    Dear Anita, main question is what kind of productivity benefits are you expecting for you and your team, of using Intranet as an online management utility. So a first step is planing and putting on paper all requirements and making a wish list formed of all details that you are expecting Intranet to make your workday more enjoyable. We actually specialize in building Intranets and Extranets for our clients using open source technologies. There is variety of platforms that may be suitable for you to use right out of the box. Some Intranets are project management oriented where others would allow you to share documents, internal communication, company marketing materials etc. Our Intranet building process is based on selecting the most appropriate platform that would cover majority of our client's needs and then further customize it with particular modules and components. That's why we are using open source technology to allow us further customization per customer's requirements. G

What do you think?

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