Saturday, August 10, 2013

Best 3 Free HyperOffice Alternatives

HyperOffice used to be a revolutionary solution. Back in 1998 it was on the cutting edge of online collaboration. Alas, no more. I mean it's 2013 and HyperOffice still looks like this. REALLY? Lucky for us, there is no shortage of tools to replace HyperOffice and best of all, most of them are free. Let's start with Bitrix24.

In my opinion, Bitrix24 is the best alternative to HyperOffice on several grounds. First - the price. It's 100% free for small companies. Second - you are given a option to use it online as well as to host Bitrix24 on your own servers and customize it or integrate with other tools you use. Finally, modern look and a MUCH better functionality than HyperOffice. Let's dig in.

Online Collaboration. Essentially Bitrix24 is next generation enterprise social network sometimes called social intranet. The idea is that you get a private social network geared toward working together and packed with tools like CRM, calendar or project management. I am going to skip over the social part (likes, badges, etc) and get right into documents.

Doc Management. There's a lot of overlap with HyperOffice here - you can store, share and collaborate on documents, so let's stick to Bitrix24 advantages. First, you get 5 GB free. Second, Bitrix24 is integrated with Google Docs. Third, Active Directory, SSO, MS Exchange, Sharepoint Syncing. Finally Bitrix24 allows both private and public document links, meaning you can publish a document in Bitrix24 and allow anyone in the world download it, if you want. Versioning in Bitrix24 is more intuitive too.

CRM. This is where Bitrix24 beats HypeOffice fair and square because HyperOffice basic functionality is more of contact management, rather than true CRM. Again, I'll skip basic CRM fuctions, because it's all there and just point out things that I liked the most - free invoices, full sale cycle/lead management, integration with e-mail. Also, Mobile CRM is quite impressive.

HR tools. I know that most peopel find HR totally boring, but being forced to do HR in the past I now pay attention. I'll make it short - time tracking, work reports, absence chart, leave requests, employee directory, co-worker appreciation tools, company-wide announcements, records management - it's all there. Record management in Bitrix24 (not that you'd care) is AWESOME.

Project Management. I really liked nested tasks in Bitrix24. Also Gantt charts in Bitrix24 look a lot better than in HyperOffice. Again, you get evertything you'd expect from online project management and it certainly appears that Bitrix24 is moving in the same direction as Asana, BaseCamp or Wrike when it comes to their PM module.

OK, this Bitrix24 review is already getting too long, so couple more links - mobile apps for iPhone or Android as well as Dropbox-like Bitrix24.Drive desktop app are worth looking into.

Again, in my personal opinion, Bitrix24 is the best HyperOffice alternative, so next time let's look at two other solutions - Mango Apps and Central Desktop and how they stack up against HyperOffice for a full HyperOffice vs Bitrix24 vs MangoApps vs CentralDesktop overview.

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