1. SFSU ISYS 363-1
Fall 2013 | Oilers
Task 1

2. Group Collaboration Space
A software solution for making a company completely interactive, and creating
a workplace where everyone contributes and shares ideas all trying to achieve
a common goal for the company.
Must haves: File sharing, secure information storage, email, video chat, instant
messaging, knowledge base, social networking and other productivity tools.
Must be applicable through mobile devices as well.
Market Leaders:
IBM (Lotus) - One of the first
companies to start group
collaboration software in the
90’s and still remains a major
market leader in the industry.
Jive Software - Founded in
2001 and got very popular
over the last 5 years, now is
one of the leading companies
in the industry.
There are over 20,000
companies selling enterprise
software collaboration, in a
market that will continue to
grow at a rapid rate over the
next 5+ years.

3. Decision Criteria
● simultaneous multi-user
● multi-platform + mobile
● easy setup, low barrier to entry
● free!
● easy to use, clean UI
● minimal/no ads
● potential for offline availability

4. Video Conference
Google Hangout - A group video conversation tool
pros cons
You can use your gmail account to access. You need to have a gmail or google +
account.
Allows instant messaging and video calls
for up to 10 people at a time.
You can not kick anyone out of the video
chat.
Works with multi-platforms including mobile
devices.
Updates may be required on first use.

5. Email
Gmail - web-based email
pros cons
Great User Interface, Clean and easy to
use. Categorize your emails into different
category and also handle spams very well.
Privacy concern such as scanning your
email for advertising.
Easy to setup gmail account and link to all
google services such as google drive,
hangouts, google voice.
Takes several steps to delete your email.
It is free and it is available on multiplatform
and available also in mobile app.
Long email threads is confusing. Hard to
find particular email.

6. Social Media
pros cons
Easy to use, user friendly, and free Lots of adds that become very distracting,
and addicting. Very big procrastination tool.
Communication can either be private
between users
Even with privacy settings, it relatively easy
to access information from users
Convenient for uploading multitude of
pictures and sharing them
You can’t control how other users use the
website. Ie you cannot stop someone from
posting information/pictures that you don’t
want available for everyone to see.
Facebook - an online social networking service

7. File Collaboration
pros cons
Quick access to your documents Only available via Internet access.
Has a few more collaborative features such
as file sharing, simultaneously working on
the same files and doesn't need to be
installed on your computer to use them.
May need phone number for new Google
account verification (this becomes a
problem when one IP address requests
several accounts)
Cloud based so it won’t clutter up the
memory and processor in your computer
Does not offer the “whole” word processing
program
Google Docs - group file collaboration in the cloud

8. Task Management
Basecamp - a project management tool for teams with
access to all your projects and people in one place
pros cons
easy to organize conversations, tasks, files it is not free (though for a business, it’s
cheap)
web-based, mobile apps baseline is not as feature packed as other
collaboration tools
easy to use, one of the first and remains
industry leader
requires new account for signup vs utilizing
other services (barrier to entry is higher)

9. Decision
Facebook & Google Docs
● Facebook Group Page easy to use, multi-platform, collaborate
conversation space that is free and has a low barrier to entry as most
everyone already has an account
● Use google docs for easy to use, multi-platform, simultaneous cloud based
file collaboration and cloud storage that is free, has low barrier to entry as
most have an account and has offline access

10. References
● http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/5-awesome-project-management-tools-to-get-your-team-on-track.html
● http://www.itproportal.com/2013/06/13/the-best-7-tools-and-services-for-project-management/
● https://basecamp.com/
● https://basecamp.com/one-page-project
● http://voices.yahoo.com/the-pros-cons-using-facebook-3435308.html
● https://www.facebook.com/
● www.gmail.com
● http://www.paysonroundup.com/news/2011/may/27/look-pros-and-cons-google-docs/
● http://expbook.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/google-docs-one-year-review/
● http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/
● http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/conferencing-tools-reviews/fr/google-plus-hangouts.htm
● http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/385-wisdom-of-crowds-use-of-collaboration-software-grows.html
● http://www.informationweek.com/social-business/social_networking_private_platforms/which-vendors-dominate-enterprise-
collab/240144611