Page 84 - Using MIS

52 Chapter 2 Collaboration Information Systems

Content Type Desktop Application Web Application Cloud Drive

Oce documents Microsoft Oce Google Docs Google Grid
(Word, Excel, LibreOce (Import/ Export Microsoft OneDrive
PowerPoint) OpenOce non–Google Docs) Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft Web Apps
(Microsoft Oce only)
PDFs Adobe Acrobat Viewers in Google Google Grid
Grid and Microsoft Microsoft OneDrive
Web OneDrive and Microsoft SharePoint
SharePoint Drop Box
Photos, videos Adobe Photoshop, Google Picasa Google Grid
Camtasia, and Microsoft OneDrive
numerous others Microsoft SharePoint
Apple iCloud Drop Box
Other (engineering Speci c application Rare Google Grid
Figure 2-13 drawings) (Google SketchUp) Microsoft OneDrive
Content Applications Microsoft SharePoint
DropBox
and Storage Alternatives

For teams that are sharing Office documents such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, the gold
standard of desktop applications is Microsoft Office. However, it is also the most expensive. To
minimize costs, some teams use either LibreOffice (www.libreoffice.org) or Apache OpenOffice
(www.openoffice.org). Both are license-free, open-source products. (You’ll learn more about
these terms in Chapter 4; for now, think free.) These products have a small subset of the features
and functions of Microsoft Office, but they are robust for what they do and are adequate for
many businesses and students.
Teams that share documents of other types need to install applications for processing those
particular types. For examples, Adobe Acrobat processes PDF files, Photoshop and Google
Picasa process photos, and Camtasia produces computer screen videos that are useful for
teaching team members how to use computer applications.
In addition to desktop applications, teams can also process some types of content using
Web applications inside their browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and so on). Both Google Docs and
Microsoft Web Applications can process Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. However, Google
has its own versions of these files. Consequently, if the user uploads a Word document that
was created using a desktop application and then wishes to edit that document, he or she must
convert it into Google Docs format by opening it with Google Docs. After editing the document,
if the user wants to place the document back into Word format, he or she will need to specifi-
cally save it in Word format. This is not difficult once the user is aware of the need to do so. Of
course, if the team never uses a desktop application and instead uses Google Docs to create and
process documents via the Web, then no conversion between the desktop and Google Docs for-
mats is needed. Microsoft Web Apps can be used in a similar way, but Web Apps will only edit
documents that were created using Microsoft Office. Documents created using LibreOffice and
OpenOffice cannot be edited using Microsoft Web Apps.
Browser applications require that documents be stored on a cloud server. Google Docs doc-
uments must be stored on Google Drive; Microsoft Web Apps must be stored on either Microsoft
OneDrive or Microsoft SharePoint. We will illustrate the use of Google Docs and Google Grid
when we discuss version management later in this chapter.
Documents other than Office documents can be stored (but not processed via the browser)
on any cloud server. Team members store the documents on the server for other team mem-
bers to access. Dropbox is one common alternative, but you can use Google Grid, Microsoft
OneDrive, and SharePoint as well. You can also store photos and videos on Apple’s iCloud.