What is Cloud Collaboration Software?
As a company, when we first started out 10 years ago, it was all about annotation software. There were then a few “buzz terms” such as handwriting recognition, which is the ability to convert hand written words into actual text and then shape recognition was also a “must have” in the eyes of the user. Today, things have moved on and people are looking for “Collaboration Software” and more and more “Cloud Collaboration Software”
Cloud collaboration software as the name suggests is “collaboration software” that is “based in a Cloud”. What this means exactly is that because it is cloud-based, you are not installing the software locally on your machine, you are actually accessing the software located on a remote server. This is where the term cloud comes from. You may also hear things like server farm for the description of where these “clouds” actually are. In terms of the “collaboration” portion, what you should be looking for is the ability to share information with your colleagues in real time across the software. This can be documents, images, annotations and more. You should be able to work on a shared workspace to complete an activity or redline a document.
There are some distinct benefits to Cloud Collaboration Software, so let’s go ahead and take a look.
Nothing to Install
This is probably the best part. When we started out all those years ago, there was always problems with drivers and software being installed onto the user’s computers. In today’s society where we are embracing the cloud, there is nothing to install on your local machine – usually this is just a login to a website to access software.
Nothing to Manage and Nothing to Update
An IT Administrator’s dream; quite literally. This is the ideal scenario for the IT Administrator in your place of work – they have nothing to do. More importantly, there is nothing being installed on “their” machine, nothing needing to be configured through “their network” or breaking the policies of “their firewall” – cloud software makes it all very simple.
Access from Anywhere on Any Device
Due to the fact that you have nothing to install on your local machine and you are logging into a browser, this means you can access your account, your files and your content from anywhere. This is a real advantage if you have a work and a home computer or want to login from your cell phone or iPad to modify a presentation or a lesson. Total convenience.
Cross Platform Collaboration
Being able to use any device on the Cloud Collaboration software is really important, especially if you work in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) workplace. Even if there is not a formal policy in place, the chances are that you have a multitude of different devices, computers, PCs MACs, Tables, etc etc that you would like to all play nicely today – this is where Cloud collaboration really comes to life. The ability to become Operating System agnostic.
Casting
Some Cloud Software, such as Contribute Cloud from TouchIT Technologies even has the ability to Cast built into the software. Casting is the ability to send your screen wirelessly to another computer or in most cases, a large screen or interactive LED.
Try Contribute Cloud
Contribute Cloud Software enables content delivery, collaboration, Casting and Multi-Casting all through a FREE cloud-based platform. Simply add your content, share it with your students or colleagues and they are able to collaborate with you – all through a browser. Import content from popular file formats and even other brands of interactive whiteboards and LEDs’ software. Try it now for FREE at http://contribute.cloud
