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Monday 27 May 2013

SharePoint Development and File Sharing - Understanding the Alternatives

Most professionals, nowadays, have to work in a hugely distributed professional environment. With companies outsourcing the projects partially, each project manager have to constantly communicate and coordinate with vendors, clients, partners and distributed team members. The files sharing software has made it easier for professionals to easily collaborate, communicate and exchange information with people associated with the project regardless of their current location. In comparison to other online file sharing tools, Microsoft SharePoint is hugely popular due to its efficiency in facilitating enterprise collaboration. This makes the search for “Top companies in Sharepoint” rise to gigantic global numbers.

However, the small and medium businesses often consider SharePoint to be expensive. Along with paying high license fees, a company also has to invest in hardware, maintenance and data security. Further, a business has to deploy a team of trained and experienced professionals to implement, manage and support the SharePoint. Many companies have launched SharePoint alternatives to make it easier for SMEs to share their files without spending a lot of money. You can even consider using a number of open source enterprise content management systems to avail the features and functionality offered by Microsoft SharePoint.

6 Open Source Alternatives to Microsoft SharePoint

  1. Alfresco: Alfresco is hugely popular as an open source enterprise content management system that allows users to easily maintain and organize their files. The file sharing tools comes with a number of handy features like desktop file access, advanced search, editable content and web content management. As the system maintains all your files in a scalable and centralized repository, you can easily maintain it without putting any extra effort. Also, the system offers searching capabilities and efficient browsing, along with wizard based configuration. You can further avail additional support from the Alfresco team by buying the paid edition.
  1. MindTouch: Many reports have cited MindTouch as the best file sharing alternative to IBM Lotus and Microsoft SharePoint. The open source enterprise collaborative system further supports the most advanced knowledge bases, intranets and extranets. You can use MindTouch to share the files across the extranet and intranet of your company, along with web dashboards, product documentation and knowledge bases. 
     
  2. Liferay: As a social collaboration solution for your business, Liferay enables you to streamline the entire communication at your workspace without putting any extra time. You can use the system for building group cohesion and raising productivity levels. Based on your convenience, you can use the community edition for free without availing any support, or avail additional support by buying the paid enterprise edition. Each edition of Liferay enables you to enjoy features like enterprise collaboration; web publishing and shared workspaces; social networking; identity management; and content and document management with Microsoft Office integration.

  3. Plone: Plone is popular among users due to its easy to install and use features. The users without having technical skills can also use the flexible content management system to create, maintain and share information through a web browser. So the small companies can use Plone to manage their files without deploying a team of trained technicians. Along with offering easy to use and extend features, Plone also uses advanced security techniques to keep your files safe, secure and inaccessible.

  4. Magnolia: As a content management system, Magnolia is popular among users residing in various parts of the world. Despite being available under an open source license, Magnolia offers a number of easy-to-use features to empower a variety of enterprise websites. You can use the page editing interface provided by Magnolia to design the content layout as it will be displayed to your website visitors. While using Magnolia, you also have options to get services and supports from partners and vendors from different countries.

  5. Sensenet: Many large and renowned companies use Sensenet as an open source alternative to Microsoft SharePoint. Along with managing your documents, web content, and business processes, you can also use Sensenet to easily collaborate with your distributed team members, peers and clients in a friendly online workspace. Based on your needs, you can use the Sensenet community edition for free under the GPL license, or buy the commercial enterprise edition with additional support and services.

In addition to these six open source alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint, you also have options to choose from several other content management systems including WebGUI, Mambo, KnowledgeTree, and Callanos. However, you can also consider several proprietary file management systems that enable you to manage your content without investing a lot of money.

We provide sharepoint development services. If you would like to know what makes us expert sharepoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.