Office suite: choosing between Open Source and Proprietary
Many French companies spontaneously mention open source when it comes to upgrading their office environment. This is less the case in English-speaking countries. Many of them have taken the plunge, mainly thanks to LibreOffice, sometimes with a certain amount of regret... We're at the dawn of 2016, and a lot of new features are on the way. So it's time for a round-up of comparisons between office suites and the best free and proprietary productivity software.
Unified communication and collaboration
The major trend in office suites over the next 5 years is to offer collaboration (document sharing, knowledge sharing) and communication (email, chat, video-conferencing, etc.) functionalities in a single environment. This has the advantage of enabling intelligent management of the growing flow of information from heterogeneous sources (professional exchanges, notifications, newsletters, social networks, etc.).
In addition to classic functions such as messaging, contacts, calendaring and document creation , office suites are increasingly adopting :
- live collaboration on documents
- informal exchange spaces (intranets, groups, social networks)
- instant messaging, videoconferencing and screen sharing
- access on all media (mobile and tablet)
New practices are being put in place thanks to the modernity of these tools: emails are now supplanted by chats for informal communication, or document comments for team projects.
The new messaging systems also help you to cope with the ever-increasing volume of incoming e-mails, by sorting out the important ones (those addressed to you personally) from the less important ones (e-mails addressed to a whole team), or even those that are not important at all, such as notifications or advertisements. In a recent post, the Google Research Team even announced that automatic replies to emails were now possible on its Inbox application.
When should you consider open-source?
Open Source solutions, even those of American origin, are usually made available to companies by local hosting companies such as Ovea. Ovea offers its customers the Zimbra solution on its own state-of-the-art servers in the south of France. These hosts also offer services (support, training, maintenance) with the proximity and responsiveness you need. None of the market leaders in cloud-based office suites currently offer SMBs and VSEs the choice of hosting their data in France. This is all the more important given that on October 6, the European Court of Justice put an end to the Safe Harbour agreement legalizing the exchange of personal data between the USA and Europe.
Another important point is integration into your IT environment. Open Source software is by definition open, meaning that you can upgrade it through specific developments. Many hosting companies are working to make these solutions more ergonomic, to add functionalities or to adapt them to your business. Openness also applies to your data: you can manipulate your data to retrieve, for example, your calendar or your contacts in your CRM. This use of data can be one-way, or two-way in the case of synchronization with a third-party application.
Finally, if you're simply looking for a more open alternative to the market giants, Open Source will obviously offer you a credible solution with BlueMind or Zimbra.
Please note: price is not an argument against proprietary solutions. Open does not mean free. Today, there is no link between the openness of an office suite and its price.
The advantages of proprietary software
The market giants don't have data hosting and openness on their side. On the other hand, they do have an irreplaceable advantage: direct confrontation with users. This unmediated confrontation drives them to continuously optimize the user experience.
We spend as much time in our office chair as we do with our e-mail and documents. Unified communication and collaboration tools are also at the heart of corporate information. This is why optimal user comfort is essential, which is less the case for business software.
In this respect, Google's Google Apps for Work and Microsoft's Office 365 are far ahead of their open-source rivals.
When it comes to compatibility, the American giants are still the winners. Half of all online office suites are split between Google and Microsoft. According to Microsoft's latest quarterly report, 1 million new registrations are recorded every month. So it's a safe bet that your document exchanges or video communications with external partners will be in a format that's fully compatible with Google Apps or Office 365.
The final major advantage is the performance of these solutions. With 13 data centers worldwide (none in France), Google is able to offer very substantial storage space, a failure rate of less than 0.01% and excellent application speed. All at a very attractive price.
Today, you have alternatives to the market benchmarks, with mature, credible solutions for businesses. These often offer more localized and adaptable services, much appreciated by SMEs. Proprietary software, on the other hand, offers the very best in terms of ergonomics and compatibility, and will help you boost your day-to-day productivity. Feel free to compare them on Appvizer and share your experiences in the comments section.
Article translated from French