One of the best features about SharePoint, and one that makes it useful to thousands of business owners who are struggling to find good collaboration software, is the fact that with the new updates users can collaboration in “real time” on documents and save changes without emailing back and forth.
Even Dropbox and Google Docs, which were once hailed for their cloud-based collaboration capabilities, do not share documents in the way that SharePoint is capable of doing. While it is true that both Dropbox and Google Docs allow users to access documents from a number of locations, they do not share the same type of “real-time” collaboration capabilities that are evidenced in SharePoint.
Use SharePoint to Share Data Across Multiple Platforms
If you have a business in which people are on-the-go and in the field, you need a data management system that will allow you to share your data across multiple platforms. This means that while one person is working on adding numbers to a spreadsheet, another can be pulling the data in real time for insertion into a word processing document or report and still another can be feeding information found from various web searches to the team as a whole. This is the type of collaboration that SharePoint allows. Everyone can do his or her job instantly without waiting for someone else.
Further, SharePoint allows one-to-one collaboration for those who are down the hall or across the country from each other. With SharePoint’s collaborative features, workers can stay in touch through various methods such as messaging with Yammer, email and discussions on documents without ever having to leave their desks. SharePoint also allows the creation of unique apps designed specifically for your company.
Finally, SharePoint offers two versions: online for those whose workers are almost always separated and must access their work on-the-go, and offline for those who want to set up a secure inter-office infrastructure. Both methods work well for those who need a particular type of database management, and both are available from SharePoint for a per-user or per-product price.
Why Should I Choose SharePoint?
SharePoint gives you the help you need to manage your workload and your employees. You can get things done with SharePoint that are difficult or impossible to accomplish with other management systems.
For more information on how SharePoint can help you manage your data, your employees and your communication more effectively, visit the interactive SharePoint website at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/.