Collaboration buyers guide
Collaboration is back in the news. There have been ongoing developments of tools and technologies from the big names including Microsoft and Google. The goal is to make it easier for workers to collaborate with colleagues inside the organisation, and with customers and partners outside.
At least in part, this trend is driven by the development and promotion of the Cloud, where collaboration is a natural part of the process. But while the Cloud may be the latest enabling technology, there’s nothing new about the drive towards collaboration – the term ‘groupware’ was coined more than 30 years ago, and the first successful groupware product arrived 10 years later in the form of Lotus Notes.
However the focus of collaboration has changed somewhat in the intervening period. The original offerings placed the emphasis on tools such as shared calendars, contact management and scheduling, while document management was limited by the available technology. Today shared calendars, contacts and schedules are a commonplace part of the desktop environment, regardless of the need to collaborate. Now document management is at the heart of the latest solutions.