Secure Collaboration

The KuppingerCole Market Compass for Secure Collaboration maps a market shift from perimeter- or infrastructure-bound controls and purely restrictive tools (such as standalone DLP) toward data-centric security that enables file and data-object mobility without losing protection. Secure Collaboration solutions are designed to support internal and external sharing while keeping persistent safeguards—access control, encryption, authentication, auditing, and policy enforcement—attached to the data wherever it travels. This approach acknowledges modern realities: multi-cloud and hybrid environments, a fading organizational perimeter, remote work, BYOD, device sprawl, and expanding partner ecosystems that increase both duplication and “shadow” repositories of sensitive data.

Core use cases include data-centric security, internal/external collaboration, audit and analytics, compliance, and modernization of data management. Strong solutions combine discovery and classification (structured and unstructured) with fine-grained, policy-based authorization that can restrict actions such as reading, editing, downloading, printing, or screenshotting, often supported by secure viewers, redaction, and watermarking. Encryption at rest, in transit, and in use—paired with robust key management and HSM support—is positioned as essential, but increasingly as part of interoperable collaboration-oriented stacks rather than a standalone add-on. Tight integration with common workplace platforms (Office 365, Google Workspace, Slack) and identity standards (SSO, federation via SAML/OAuth/OIDC, MFA) reduces friction and improves adoption.

The report highlights market direction: traditional information protection surged again in 2020 but is expected to decline in hype as vendors pivot via acquisitions and capability convergence toward Secure Collaboration. Notable recognitions include Virtru (Innovation), Microsoft (Functionality), Exostar (Regulated Industry), Secude (Extending Microsoft Purview Information Protection into SAP/CAD), and Micro Focus (Securing structured and unstructured data). Vendor profiles emphasize differing strengths—ranging from Microsoft-native labeling and double key encryption, to regulated-industry onboarding ecosystems, ABAC-driven authorization, and specialized extensions for SAP/PLM/CAD workflows.

• Secure Collaboration solutions enable data objects and files to move between internal and external users while maintaining persistent protection.
• Major Secure Collaboration use cases include data-centric security, internal and external collaboration, audit and analytics, compliance, and modernization.
• Inclusion criteria require discovery and classification for both structured and unstructured data plus policy-based access control, authentication/federation, encryption, and key management.
• Exclusion criteria omit simple file-sharing tools lacking significant security and tools that are exclusively DLP or exclusively classification.
• Virtru is rated Outstanding in Innovation.
• Microsoft is rated Outstanding in Functionality.
• Exostar is rated Outstanding in Regulated Industry.
• Secude is rated Outstanding in Extending Microsoft Purview Information Protection (MPIP) Functionality.
• Micro Focus is rated Outstanding in Securing Structured and Unstructured Data.
• Exostar has cultivated a community of over 150,000 companies in more than 175 countries.

• “To unlock the power and usefulness of enterprise data and to match the way business is conducted, it must be mobile, with accountable security as it moves and works for the organization.”
• “Security of data in such an age cannot be bound to infrastructure when the infrastructure itself is agile.”
• “Instead of a prohibitive protection style, Secure Collaboration solutions should facilitate easy sharing of data with the right people in the right context.”
• “For secure collaboration solutions, the need for convenient, user-friendly implementations that impose as little friction as possible when integrated with often-used tools and platforms (e.g. Office365) is essential.”
• “Balancing collaboration and security is the status quo, but innovating in order to advance collaboration through the lens of security policies is the target.”
• “This exchange also proliferates the information, creating duplication, shadow stockpiles of sensitive data, multiple versions in various stages of completion, and ownership or access to data objects and files that cannot be accounted for.”
• “Secure Collaboration solutions were already on the rise as the pandemic hit, causing a quick change in the location of workers, the flood of digitalization projects, and increased need to collaborate virtually with internal and external participants.”
• “Encryption is essential for secure collaboration.”
• “A strong solution is one that protects enterprise data with flexible access control that follows the data wherever it travels.”
• “Vendors in this segment enable collaborative work within the enterprise and with partners, suppliers, customers, etc. in a secure manner.”