Google now offers Google Workspace Essentials (formerly G Suite Essentials), providing a solution for users of Outlook or Office whose teams want to use Google Meet and Google Apps without needing to involve a personal gmail account. Google Workspace Essentails includes Google Slides, Sheets, and Docs, as well as Google Meet, Google Drive, Forms, Sites, and Keep, in a bundle minus a gmail account.
Basic Essentials supports (via Meet) meetings with up to 150 participants, and Google Drive with…
$8
per month per user
Jive
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Jive Software, part of the Aurea family of customer experience solutions, provides the gateway to an organization's most important assets – its knowledge and people. Jive's interactive intranet solution promises to connect people, information and ideas to help businesses outpace their competitors. The vendor says the product has more than 30 million users worldwide across every industry, and is consistently recognized as a leader by top analyst firms.
Well-suited for: Fast-paced drafting ideas, docs, charts, sheets, etc. Love it for client calls as well. Google Meet runs in a web browser; you don't need to download any special software. Shared Drives are great for sharing information; the ability to add a Google Notebook to them is the icing on the cake. It is less appropriate when Wi-Fi or the internet is spotty, or when you need heavy-duty Excel macro data crunching.
It's definitely worth considering Jive for the type of application we've developed i.e. a central shared repository for all employees to host and discuss information. I can't say I have ever used a superior tool, but they may exist. I'm just not sure I would want to use it exclusively for file hosting, though. It does integrate with various other tools, so perhaps it would be fine if used in conjunction with another tool for that purpose.
Presence of Russian language (localization can be independently established)
You can configure several information tapes with different themes. One for work, the second for communication
A newly-arrived network user immediately receives a prepared block for beginners. After completing several game tasks, the user will receive the basics of using Jive.
There is a template for each scenario. There is even a template for planning R&D, and there are more than twenty of them.
Integrates with MS Office, Google Drive, Google Docs
There are all platforms (even Winphone and blackberry)
Now that our department has used G Suite Essentials for close to 2 years, I can't imagine not using it. It has proven to be a very practical tool for sharing files / folders on a shared drive. It also makes it easy to modify and update content. It is user friendly and the interface is simple.
There are always external factors that can impact this decision but currently, the Jive platform is maintaining its lead in the market place in this area. If the innovation in this space by Jive continues, then this number will remain high. Integration with other systems and adaptability to changes in the market or in client needs will also make this decision hard to predict more then 6 months into the future
It is so easy to use, very intuitive and the site looks nice. There is no hint of the old DOS days in the look and functionality. Let's be real, Google Workspace Essentials is attractive and easy on the eyes and even offers a dark mode if you want to rest your eyes a bit or are in a mood for such
It was harder to use that expected. The admin needs to be code savvy to truly customize the system. And users need to trained on the system and the setup. Trainings and monitoring need to continue to enforce use.
Uptime was OK. But there was one day that the system crashed for a whole day. Our company was unable to operate. And all the plugins to word/excel froze causing those systems to freeze.
Jive posted a statement to the media saying all customers were up, but we were not.
They did an OK job when I needed them. Except for the one day the system went down. Jive pointed the finger at the hosting company, and the hosting company pointed the finger at Jive. No reliable information came to us.
Jive online training is there. It is OK/average. I feel some other companies are doing better. It is not a piece that is required to have a successfully implementation, but it could be useful to improve it
Google Workspace Essentials is more robust than Dropbox with the other features that are available. Google Workspace Essentials is very comparable to Microsoft 365, and we ultimately went with Google because at the time, it was free/priced better than MS, and now we have lots of legacy files already stored on Google servers, so a switch would be too time-consuming. We went with Google Workspace Essentials over OpenOffice because of the email features of using Google.
We had a Google phone number set up before and Jive was a lot better option than that. It is more consistent and can be configured much easier and with more advanced settings. Additionally, based on the pricing as well as working with the rep on our account, it was a perfect option for us
reduce amount of files/documents scattered & lost across shared drives
increased discovery, awareness and interaction of historically more separated individuals & team functions across the organisation
from an IT perspective, we've benefited from improved IT operations (e.g. troubleshooting info shared and easily searched/found with all team members - such that even junior team members can solve technical problems outside of business hours, lessening the burden for standby/call-in for more senior team members)
