SaaS document management is beginning to see a lot of use, and people will, in a very short period of time, forget that it wasn’t around a few years prior. Synchronous interaction with an online environment between disparate users isn’t a completely new thing, with instant messaging, gaming and other things having been around for a long time. A few ISPs experimented with tandem cursor browsing in the late 1990s as well, but even when true desktop interaction over remote became powerful and supported by better bandwidth, there was no real system where users could edit a document simultaneously and effectively live-share it in a file system.
Well, SaaS document management software resolved this, and there are a lot of services out there to choose from. So, I’ll take a look at a few that I find outstanding, and that I think you will too. You’ve heard of these, but perhaps chose to overlook them, or didn’t really know what they were at the time.
#1 – Google Drive
Google is good, nobody’s going to argue otherwise. They’ve blossomed from a simple but powerful search engine provider to a multi-faceted software powerhouse that practically defined SaaS and all but invented document management as well.
Google Docs was the original moniker of this service, wherein people could edit documents in a Word-like interface in their browser, and save it to their account. They could then download it as an Office compliant file, or share it with other Google users, who could be given permission to view only, or to edit. When multiple users viewed it simultaneously, with edit permissions, they could simultaneously see each other’s cursors, and type in the document.
Google Drive swallowed this, expanding on the filesystem and editing capabilities. The amazing thing is that if you don’t mind a slightly small amount of space, this thing is free!
#2 – Central Desktop
Central Desktop followed Google Drive by further defining what document management was all about. This system is geared for a wide array of professional purposes including accounting, education, finance, legal, industrial and just about anything else that’s mostly standard.
It uses SQL and is flexible enough for a wide range of business scopes and sizes, and has utmost security. It’s a little expensive at $90/month, but it’s well worth it for the proper organization, sharing, editing and distribution of important protocol documents and business data.
#3 – Cintas
Cintas is a multi-service professional company providing human resources, accounting, and now also document management SaaS platforms as well. This is similar to Central Desktop, but offers the power of a ton more languages, and several templates and protocols for extra document types, like real estate and medical.
It’s pricier, but it’s worth the expense if you want to really get the most bang for your buck.
So, we see that SaaS document management evolved from a shared file system and editing capacity in a pretty raw form, to a refined, task-oriented type of software, which highly experienced professional companies then went on to refine further, into a very standard and widely-developed new software industry.