The global market for enterprise collaboration is set to reach a value of $53.83 billion by 2023, according to the latest reports. It's easy to see why the growth of this space is so significant. After all, today's workplaces are growing increasingly dispersed, separated by things like remote working, globalization, and mobile employees. Collaboration tools like "Teams" apps are a way to bring all of your staff members together in the same productive environment.
Through the cloud and immersive collaborative tools, employees can continue to work together in seamless digital environments, regardless of wherever they are. Access to project management, file sharing, and conferencing tools have made work something we do, rather than a place we go to.
However, with so many team collaboration tools available on the market today, it can be challenging to determine which option is right for you. The easiest way to start making this choice could be to begin with a vendor that lets you try before you buy. Here are some of the companies providing their Teams apps for free.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams isn't just one of the most impressive enterprise apps for collaboration in the modern marketplace; it's also a leading solution for smaller companies too. Recently, Microsoft introduced the free version of its Teams offering, to compete with the likes of Slack. The free version of Microsoft Teams comes with all the benefits of the premium option, including access to the full Office 365 portfolio. What's more, Microsoft has also been incredibly generous with its free feature set.
Unlimited messages and search are available for no cost, along with guest access, a maximum of 300 users, and of course, the option to integrate more than 140 apps into your collaboration experience. Microsoft offers one of the most robust free Teams apps around. For those wondering whether they should take their Microsoft ecosystem to the next level, the free version of Microsoft Teams is a fantastic way to discover what's possible with a leading Teams tool.
Cisco Webex Teams
Cisco is one of the main enterprise collaboration apps competing with Microsoft Teams today. It provides high-level communication and collaboration functionality, supported by a company with a significant heritage in the UC space. The Cisco Webex Teams application comes with state-of-the-art video and audio web conferencing software, as well as the option to integrate with leading Cisco and third-party hardware.
Cisco's free offering is only available for a trial run of 30 days, but this should be more than enough time for today's business leaders to get an insight into whether this tool could be the perfect addition to their collaborative experience. Over 30 days, you can discover how comfortable your team truly feels using a Cisco solution to enhance their day-to-day interactions, then upgrade with ease if you decide to go premium.
Slack
Slack is probably the best-known solution for free collaboration apps on the market today. Perhaps the go-to offering for smaller businesses and freelancers, Slack has always offered an immersive free experience for those who want to discover the benefits of cloud-based collaboration. This fantastic tool provides a range of integrations with leading services from across the business environment, including Dropbox and Google Drive. Slack is one of the simplest solutions for today's teams to adopt, with an easy-to-use and intuitive interface that seems to appeal to companies of any background or size.
Slack's free offering provides everything you would expect from the typical Slack experience, including direct messaging, threaded content, and voice and video calling if you feel like taking your conversations with colleagues to the next level. With the Slack free plan, you'll be limited to searching through 10,000 of your team's recent messages. Additionally, you can only use up to 10 custom or third-party integrations with your app.
Samepage
Samepage might not have quite as much heritage as Slack, Cisco, or Microsoft Teams when it comes to Unified Communications, but it has a lot to offer for businesses in search of free collaboration support. The Samepage software helps today's organisations to improve their workflow through team chat, task management, file sharing, real-time collaboration, and video conferencing. It's an excellent alternative to project management tools that don't typically come with collaborative features.
Speaking of solutions for better project management, Wrike is a Teams tool specifically designed for agile companies that want to make the most of their collaboration strategy. With Wrike, you can bring your employees together in a digital environment that's intended to break-down the silos in communication with live editing features, proof functionality, task management, and even Kanban boards.
Today, RingCentral is one of the leading providers of communication and collaboration tools in locations around the world. It's no surprise that this popular vendor would want to explore the benefits of hosting their own collaborative tool. The RingCentral Glip platform was designed from the ground up to improve the interactions between team members in any environment through an immersive communications channel. Glip is a functional, intuitive, and easy-to-use chat and task management application.
Workplace by Facebook is one of the more recent additions to the collaboration environment for today's enterprise and business users. Designed to provide people with a similar experience to the one that they get with their favourite social media tool, Workplace by Facebook gives you a unique social experience of collaboration, unlike anything else out there today. Rather than creating a department or team specific tool, Facebook created Workplace to try and bring everyone in your organisation together in the same unified space.
