Collaboration Tools: The Decision

As you can see, I had a lot of material to review. I did my best to cover each of the criteria and how they applied to the collaboration tools.

Here's a reminder of the results:

• Hyperoffice - B
• Vyew - B
• KeepandShare - C+
• Project2Manage - C

Based on my grades it came down to Hyperoffice and Vyew. 

I decided that Vyew is a lot more value for my purposes. It is FREE. It has almost all of the same features as the more expensive, Hyperoffice. It is simple, cohesive, user-friendly and very easy for members to collaborate. Compared to the other collaboration tools, I felt it was more intuitive and fun to use.

In case you didn't feel like reading my posts, here is a simple table which demonstrates how each tool met (or fell short of) the criteria:

	HyperOffice	Vyew	KeepandShare	Project2Manage
Software/ Hardware Required	No software or hardware requirements. Hyperdrive installation required for easy uploading—not needed.	No software or hardware requirements.	No software or hardware requirements.	No software or hardware requirements
OS Compatibility	Any Mac or Windows OS. Any internet browser.	Any Mac or Windows OS. Any internet browser.	Any Mac or Windows OS. Any internet browser.	Any Mac or Windows OS. Any internet browser.
Number of Users	Varies with price	Free account: up to 10 people/room Upgraded account: up to 80 people/room ($1/additional person 11-80).	Unlimited	Unlimited
Storage Space	1.25GB	No limit to size. 300 “pages” (items) per room.	100MB total. 10MB/upload. Can be upgraded: 3GB total. 1GB/upload.	150MB
Synchronization and Email	Can be synced with Microsoft Outlook. Free email with customizable domain.	Your choice of synchronous or asynchronous collaboration. No email feature or synch with email providers.	No email feature	No email feature, but a message feature exists for communicating with project members. All edits are up-to-the minute.
Security	Daily virus updates, spam-free	Only upgraded accounts have security.	Only upgraded accounts have security.	Only upgraded accounts have security.

And here is a table with the grade breakdown:

	Hyperoffice	Vyew	KeepandShare	Project2Manage
Hardware/Software Os/Browser	A	A	A	A
Number of Users per Project	C	B	A	A
Storage Space	B	A	D	D
Synchronization/ Email	B	A	D	D
Security	A	C	C	D

I hope that this will help you when selecting a collaboration tool for your needs. If you have further comments or questions, please leave a comment and I will respond promptly!