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Description

Collaboration software applications help groups, co-workers, partners to communicate better by sharing files, ideas and it helps them organize and manage the projects with calendars, scheduling, contact and content management or with instant messaging, videoconferencing tools. A collaboration software application can be a tool or web based solution, usually or on a local server that lets people in a team or in a company communicate and work together on a certain project, share information and documents, talk in real time over local or remote networks. The term "groupware" is also used to describe a software collaborative environment that includes tools for facilitating communication and team project management : email, videoconferencing, instant messaging, chat, file storage, wiki, conference applications.

Collaboration is no longer considered a luxury feature but as a necessity as the world of communication has changed dramatically in the last years. There's an obvious need for facilitating remote working environments and real-time interaction no matter where and when. And now, nothing can be easy than collaborating with your coworkers or partners as there there are many options out there: there are free applications that save you money or you can pay for some support and better use of your time

Remember the times when the proprietary and stand-alone tools were used in companies to bring people together. Phones, faxes helped remote user communicate but in today modern business environment more and more solutions rosed and it's even harder to choose the right solution. Collaboration tools, and more specifically a collaboration environment, can lead to dramatic increases in business value. Using collaboration as a means facilitates more effective business processes and decreases information technology support requirements and costs.

There is now a better way for online collaboration to increase cost savings and productivity while improving customer acquisition and retention rates. Old barriers to online collaboration, such as unpredictable pricing, low security and minimal user adoption, are a thing of the past

Best Collaborative Applications

For starting to organize your teams, manage them, communicate via sms, email or videoconference, for managing all the contact, for sharing ideas or files, to start discussions and plan schedules there are two options: to pay or not to pay

For the commercial products the benefits are quite obvious, you pay but you don't waste time on setups , administration and you get support for your problems. Free applications are free. You don't pay but you have to have your skilled people in house to take care of the collaborative software you choose. Some of the free collaborative suites available, though, don't give much of a headache and have strong support amid the communities around there. Here are some lists on the best collaborative solutions that you can find:

Commercial Collaborative Software

• ProjectSpaces by Forum One Communications
• GroupWare by Novell
• Lotus Notes by IBM
• SameTime by Microsoft
• QuickBase by Intuit

Open Source Collaborative Software

• Kolab Project
• Phpgroupware
• eGroupWare
• more.groupware Free web based collaborative solution with active forum and support
• Mayetic Village

Communities

See also

• All about Integrated Collaborative Enviroments
• Team Collaborative Applications
• Group Calendaring and Scheduling