Content Management Software

Don’t worry about upgrading to Office 2010. Microsoft Office competitor, Central Desktop, has created a new collaborative framework that allows users to open, save, edit and co-author files on the Microsoft Office Cloud.

Central Desktop is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) social technology platform that provides its users with the ability to communicate and collaborate more efficiently. The SaaS provider has a suite of online collaboration tools including wikis, document sharing, task management, web conferencing, calendar sharing and micro-blogging.

Central Desktop uses OffiSync technology and is compatible with Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010. Once the SaaS is downloaded, Central Desktop for Office adds a toolbar in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word, that gives users the power to co-author documents in real-time from within Office. Here’s a screenshot of the application:

Central Desktop also allows users to comment on files, manage subscribers and track version history. With the new tool, users can edit Office files, simultaneously, by tracking and syncing changes made by collaborators and combine them correctly into a single updated version.

Microsoft Office offers similar multi-author collaborative tools in the new web-based Office, but Central Desktop provides the service at a lower cost than upgrading to the new web-based Microsoft Office. There are several other products that offer real-time co-editing and collaborative tools, like Central Desktop. This movement towards web-based real-time collaboration platforms is the next step for content management.