Groupware

When PCs were first introduced into the business world, they tended to be used in isolation. Individual workers would prepare documents such as spreadsheets and data-base reports and then print them out and distribute them as memos, much in the way of traditional paper documents.

However, as computers began to be tied together into local area networks (see local area network) in the 1980s, focus began to shift toward the use of software to facilitate communication, coordination, and collaboration among workers. This loosely defined genre of software was dubbed groupware.

Popular groupware software suites such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange generally offer at least some of the following features:

•  e-mail coordination, including the creation of group or task-oriented mail lists

•  shared calendar, giving each participant information about all upcoming events

•  meeting management, including scheduling (ensur-ing compatibility with everyone’s existing schedule) and facilities booking

•  scheduling tasks with listing of persons responsible for each task, progress (milestones met), and check-ing off completed tasks

•  real-time “chat” or instant message capabilities

•  documentation systems that allow a number of people to make comments on the same document and see and respond to each other’s comments

•  “whiteboard” systems that allow multiple users to draw a diagram or chart in real time, with everyone able to see and possibly modify it

Groupware is increasingly integrated with the Internet, with documents and shared resources (calendars, sched-ules, and so on) implemented in HTML as Web pages or Web-linked databases. (See also personal information manager.)

An attractive alternative to locally installed groupware is a suite of collaboration and productivity applications delivered directly via the Web and accessible using only a Web browser. Google introduced such a package called Google Apps in 2007. It has a free basic version but is expected to offer fee-based enhanced services for larger organizations.

Groupware is likely to be an increasingly important aspect of institutional information processing in a global, mobile economy. With workgroups often geographically distributed (as well as including telecommuters), traditional face-to-face meetings become increasingly impractical as well as often being considered wasteful and inefficient. New forms of collaboration are supplementing the traditional e-mail and conferencing (see blogs and blogging and wikis and Wikipedia). Wikis are particularly interesting in that they can not only track current resources, but also provide a knowledge base with lasting value.