New Cloud File Sharing Vendor Evaluations

Cloud-based file-sharing technology has emerged as an enterprise concern, with more organizations seeking to address employee needs pro-actively by licensing approved platforms.

Our just-released Cloud File Sharing and Collaboration evaluation research takes a close look at this newly emerging marketplace.

To be sure, there's no perfect solution out there that neatly blends ease of use with all the administrative and security services you'd want to see in a single enterprise-wide platform. Vendors will of course dispute this vehemently, and we see a lot of exaggerated claims of the kind you often find in young marketplaces.  Just understand that what Cloud vendors call "enterprise readiness" and what you require for organization-wide deployment may be two very different things.

Version 1.0 of this research critically evaluates 9 major players: Accellion, Box, Citrix, EMC, Oxygen, Glasscubes, Huddle and SkyDox/Workshare. Besides these, we also profile several other vendors including Alfresco, Dropbox, and Microsoft that don't compete strictly head-to-head in this marketplace but can be considered for very specific scenarios.

Some of you have pre-ordered this research and can download it all today.  If you haven't ordered the report, you're welcome to check out a complimentary chapter, our review of Citrix ShareFile.

Other Cloud File Sharing & Collaboration posts

Cloud File-Sharing Platforms a Service in Your Enterprise Architecture - Part 2

In an earlier post on this topic, I  mentioned that for Cloud File-Sharing (CFS) Platforms to become a part of the enterprise layer -- as opposed to just serving as stand-alone tools like most of them do now -- they would need to improve in a number of areas. One of the key areas where almost all the tools need improvement is in the area of reporting and compliance

Dropbox to discontinue Dropbox for Teams...

The poster child of cloud-based file sharing services, Dropbox has announced this new service targeting enterprises. The service costs $795 per year for 5 users and includes 1 TB of storage space. Enterprise features include

Is Hybrid Cloud File-sharing Right for You?

Some common arguments against cloud-based services in general -- and cloud-based file sharing services in particular -- revolve around the security implications of your files getting stored outside your firewall.

A typical argument goes like this