Box 5.6 Groupware as Collaboration Tool
What is Groupware?
Groupware is technology designed to facilitate the work of groups. This
technology may be used to communicate, cooperate, coordinate, solve
problems, compete, or negotiate. While traditional technologies like the
telephone qualify as groupware, the term is ordinarily used to refer to
a specific class of technologies relying on modern computer networks,
such as email, newsgroups, videophones, or chat.
Groupware technologies are typically categorized along two primary
dimensions:
1. whether users of the groupware are working together at the same
time (“realtime” or “synchronous” groupware) or different times
(“asynchronous” groupware), and
2. whether users are working together in the same place (“co-
located” or “face-to-face”) or in different places (“non-co-located” or
“distance”).