Any business needs tool support for 5 things
- Communication
- Planning
- File storage
- Web presence
- Security and stability
For each of theese needs there a several options. Both Google and Microsoft have well proven offerings and if you trust them to take good care of your data and your privacy it will be a good way for you to go.
If on the other hand you prefer to be in control yourself and want to have a platform that is agnostic to the client platforms you will have to look elsewhere.
The options mentioned here has the advantage of being open source and with an option for self hosting. The base editions are free to get you started.
Oh, and they all support 2-factor authentication for road warriors.
Let’s look at the 5 areas one by one:
Communiucation is actually three things: Mail, chat and online meetings.
- Mail: iRedMail or Zimbra. An option you may want to look into is Kolab)
- Chat: Rocket.chat
- Online meetings: Rocket.chat
Planning is normally a calendar and a shared task system.
With iRedMail calendar and tasks are done with SOGo Groupware. Calendar can also be a feature of NextCloud
Both Zimbra and Kolab has it integrated calendar and task management.
File storage also covers file securing. For drop-box like functionality the recommended solution is
- Nextcloud
Security is about backup and access.
- Urbackup
- Bacula
And then some VPN and 2-factor.