37Signals’ BaseCamp, covered before, provides a popular web-based product tool, but what if you’re a team or workgroup who is looking for something a little more robust?

Jive Software has released version 2.0 of their Clearspace product. Clearspace differs from other product offerings by focusing their product on the people who will be utilizing the collaboration tool.  Unlike Microsoft SharePoint, which focuses on documents, ClearSpace wants to ensure user adoption by adapting many of the Web 2.0 strategies used by FaceBook, MySpace, and other social networking sites into the enterprise environment.

Bring Social into Work Collaboration

Users who log in to Clearspace will first see their personalized home page.  Dubbed “iGoogle for your work life,” this web page is a widgetized window into your working world.  You can customize your activity streams and you can see recent activity on users by hovering over their name.  Presence indicators allow you to see the person’s availability for an IM conversation.

The startpage shows you status of all your projects, to-do lists, and related information. You can update your status, similar to Facebook.  For example, you could state, “Jason is unit testing his code for the calendar widget”.  You can also set announcements, use polls, and see tag clouds for Clearspace content.  Check out the video below, courtesy of Dennis Howlett’s review of Clearspace 2.0.

Getting Work Done

Clearspace wants to be the hub of your project management.  With their management utilities, you can create project calendars, milestones, assign tasks, discuss project status, and upload documents.  Using their customizable interface, you can drag projects you want to keep an eye onto your homepage and keep tabs on the project via RSS feeds.

As a unique feature, Clearspace allows you to collaborate on documents with people outside your corporate firewall, similar to the functionality in Google Docs.  Clearspace can also search and interact with data within Microsoft SharePoint.

The Competition is Stiff

Microsoft SharePoint is a leader in enterprise collaboration. As a SharePoint user and proponent in my day job, I’m familiar with its shortcomings. SharePoint has features such as shared calendars, task lists, document libraries and a few collaborative web tools such as blogs, wikis, and message boards.  However each component is shut off from the others, making the creation of a cohesive project website tedious.  SharePoint requires a high degree of trial and error and end-user training.  With SharePoint, Microsoft has  focused on function over user-friendliness.

Jive seems to have heard the battle cries of disgruntled employees who want to effectively collaborate with their teammates and co-workers. Clearspace, with its streamlined UI and usability, helps individuals and teams create intranets that blend attractive aesthetics and functional project sites.

Conclusion

Clearspace’s focus on giving its users the ability to set up a workspace and presenting the information that is of interest to them is a strategic advantage. FaceBook calls itself a social utility to keep you in touch with the people around you. Clearspace has taken strides to be the work utility to keep you in touch with the projects and co-workers who you depend on day-to-day to help you get your work done.

There are two purchasing options for Clearspace, a hosted model and a licensed/self-hosted model. The Licensed model sits behind your company’s firewall and is priced at $5 per user per month. For more information on hosted model pricing, see Jive’s website.

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• The Future of Work Platforms: An Overview

This is why Google launched Google Apps Team Edition. Google Apps for Your Domain has been around for quite some time, but this set of tools requires someone from your IS department to administer it. Groups inside companies can easily subvert IS involvement by just entering your corporate email address and clicking on a link inside the resulting sign-up email.

That’s right, with no permission or approval forms*, you can do the following with your co-workers:

• generate and share documents, presentations, and spreadsheets with Google Docs
• easily schedule appointments with Google Calendar
• IM and conduct VoIP calls with Google Talk
• share a combined start page with a common iGoogle start page

Additionally, Google Apps Team Edition shows you others in your organization who have also signed up for Google Apps, enabling you to conduct the above mentioned activities with ease.

This is indeed an underhanded way to get Google Apps inside the enterprise. We at Web Worker Daily think Google Apps is a great way to collaboration on documents. The old school way of interfacing on documents centered around sending documents, spreadsheets, and presentations through email. The enterprise standard Microsoft Office Word has a “Track Changes” option which generally works well. However, what happens if not everyone on your team has Microsoft Office or worse yet: different versions of Microsoft Office? Being able to use Google Docs to generate the document and “Share” it with your colleagues is an attractive option.

On the other hand, having documents behind the firewall on centralized file servers has its advantages as well. Enterprises expend resources to ensure sensitive information stays in front of the proper audience. Having documents that may contain intellectual property is not a welcome thought to many companies. Additionally, having IM conversations that are unencrypted or archived may present legal, intellectual property, and human resource issues.

Google Apps Team Edition presents a fantastic option for lightweight collaboration among those who share documents. Also, being able to chat instantly and share calendars can present an attractive option for teammates. However, if intellectual property is a concern in any way, your organization should look at SharePoint, Jive’s ClearSpace or other offerings they have access to.

Which collaboration tools are your team working with? What tips would you have with working with the IS department?

* Disclaimer:  This article is not meant to encourage you to go around any policies or guidelines your company has on electronic communication and collaboration.  Before using Google Apps (or any other hosted collaboration tool), I suggest you consult your organization’s policies on such sites and services.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• The Future of Work Platforms: An Overview