Five top open source group collaboration suites
Open source groupware to watch
By Rodney Gedda | CIO Australia | Published: 16:40, 01 December 2010
Horde
Like Citadel, Horde is a groupware suite with many additional applications. Its namesake application framework has given rise to the Horde groupware suite which can be installed as individual components or as one integrated package.
There are apps for email, calendar, contact and task management and notes which use the same framework for ticket and time tracking, source code management and collaboration. All the software is web-based.
Features include public and shared resources, import and export of groupware data and support for multiple databases. Horde integrates with Windows desktop and mobile clients via SyncML and ActiveSync respectively.
In 2008, Techworld Australia profiled Horde lead developer Jan Schneider. Horde 4 is the next major platform release due in the coming months.
A mobile application is under development for the 2.0 release of the Groupware bundle.
Sogo
Sogo is an open source groupware suite developed with the intention of being a drop-in replacement for an enterprise suite like Exchange or Lotus Notes.
Sogo has the basic email, calendar address book applications expected of a groupware suite, but its developers have done a lot of work integrating it with third party clients and servers.
Recently, Sogo announced it had successfully used the open source Openchange server to integrate with Microsoft Outlook clients. Other supported clients are Mozilla, iCal and mobile devices with the Funambol connector.
phpGroupWare
As its name indicates, phpGroupWare is a PHP-based package that, like Horde, consists of a suite of applications in addition to the usual suspects.
phpGroupWare includes email, calendar and an address book app, but also adds web content, document management, project management and ticket tracking.
The application is database agnostic and can run on MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Sybase and Microsoft SQL. Modules are available for communication, development, education and multimedia, among others.
phpGroupWare counts the Transport Workers' Union of Australia among its users with about 100 people using it in the federal office.
Licence: GPL
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