Top 10 Free Collaboration Platforms for Eastern Europe

2025. Trello redesign causes outrage among users



Atlassian has introduced an update to its project management service Trello and it was immediately met by users in a sharply negative way. The update introduced a variety of changes to the service interface, for example, it changed the arrangement of all the main interface elements on the page. The fonts and functions of the buttons have also changed - especially in the task card. Many users are sure that the new Trello interface was implemented specially to make it as inconvenient as possible and it's a secret attempt by Atlassian to force them to switch to Jira, which provides similar functionality, but is more expensive. Both services have free plans, but if you consider the paid plans, Jira costs at least $7.53 per user, while Trello costs $5. As a reminder, Atlassian acquired Trello back in 2017.


2021. Microsoft launches Google-Wave-like collaboration service Loop


Microsoft is bringing back Google Wave, the doomed real-time messaging and collaboration platform Google launched in 2009 and prematurely shuttered in 2010. Microsoft Loop is a new app for real-time editing-based applications that allow users to collaborate on documents. Loop allows you and your team to see and group everything important to your project, making it easy for you to catch up on what everyone is working on and track progress toward shared goals. Loop Pages - are canvases where you can organize your components and pull in helpful elements like links, files, or data in ways that suit your specific project needs. And on page, document or in chat you can embed Loop Components - lists, tables, notes, or for example customer sales opportunity from Dynamics 365.


2014. Teamlab opens source code and changes name to ONLYOFFICE



Teamlab, the collaboration service, has always dreamed of becoming Office—ever since it launched its own online office document editor. It's really quite good, and that's what Teamlab decided to focus on. At one point, they even changed their name to Teamlab Office. But even that wasn't enough. Yesterday (in honor of its 4th birthday), Teamlab was renamed to ONLYOFFICE. Although, as you can see from the website's main page, the developers don't hide the fact that, in addition to Office, the service includes CRM, project management tools, and document management. In addition to renaming, the developers decided to completely open-source the service. They say it's so users can be confident in the product's security. So now, if you want to install ONLYOFFICE on your own server, you can do so completely free of charge.

2011. Box.net Named Market Leader in Mobile Collaboration Solutions



The analytics company Forrester published a report on the mobile collaboration solutions market. The results are a bit strange. For example, Google (which provides great mobile access to almost all of its services) was at the bottom of the list. And Microsoft is completely absent (but its new division, Skype, turns out to have the best mobile strategy). As for the leader, Box.net, this service has really achieved great success recently. With a feature-rich but effective app and strong marketing, Box.net regularly attracts investment and new customers. Take, for example, its latest contract with Procter & Gamble for 18,000 workstations. The service has a total of 6 million users. However, this includes users of the free version, which offers a whopping 5GB of free storage. As for mobile access, until recently, Box.net only supported iPhone and iPad perfectly. However, the service recently released a mobile app for Android.


2010. Acrobat.com added kind of shared workspaces



Now it's time for another portion of criticism towards the Acrobat.com online office. The last time we reviewed the service, they introduced many useful features, but now they are doing strange things again. Although the press release looks nice: Acrobat.com added online collaboration work-spaces. In fact, they added only shared folders were you can invite your co-workers / clients for file collaboration. Previously, it was possible to share only separate files. So there is more PR than improvements made during several months. Besides Adobe decided that online shared folders - it is so demanded tool on the market that they can make money on it. Although the cost of service was not risen, but the free version allows to create only one workspace (shared folder), and the Premium Basic plan (which costs $15/month) - is limited to 20 shared folders. In addition (very odd) you can't access shared folders on your mobile device (Blackberry and iPhone).