Cloud Collaboration: 4 Ways to Make it WorkCloud Collaboration: 4 Ways to Make it Work

Enterprise collaboration -- in its most basic form -- includes voice, video, messaging, file sharing and virtual meetings.

At one time, this meant managing a complex web of servers -- many of which were incompatible with one another. From an end-user perspective, they were provided with a confusing mess of tools that had little cohesion.

Seeking to leave these on-premises collaboration tools in the past, enterprise IT departments are increasingly focusing on cloud collaboration platforms to right those previous wrongs.

Collaboration industry veterans and startup companies are breathing fresh air into unified cloud collaboration platforms that are easy to manage and provide exactly what enterprise end users are demanding.

For those of us involved in enterprise IT, it's no surprise that a new report from Synergy Research Group shows that cloud collaboration spending is higher than any other infrastructure spending segment over the past year. Because trust in the cloud has grown significantly, applications and services that have continued to be forced into on-premises deployments due to latency and redundancy concerns are now beginning to pour into the cloud.

Figure 1: Out with the old
(Source: Britannica)

Before you jump onto the cloud collaboration bandwagon, however, there are a few things to consider. Specifically, there are four factors that can help make your collaboration transition to the cloud a great deal smoother.

Who are the users?
While voice, video and messaging services certainly are standard, not all cloud collaboration platforms are equal. That's why it's so important to understand the needs of your end users prior to deciding on a unified collaboration platform.