At a time when the boundaries defining office space and home are blurring,
the need for anytime, anywhere collaboration has attained even greater
significance. In short, for effective collaboration with geographically
dispersed co-workers, partners, and customers companies have been reinventing
the use of technology. And this is where real time collaboration has come into
play. It's no longer just an internal tool, but it extends to partners and
customers as well.
Internet has made possible much richer communication, in the form of real
time collaboration, on both wired and wireless infrastructure. Real time
collaboration typically means using internet and presence technology to
communicate with co-workers irrespective of where they are. It enables people to
find peers or decision makers using a single telephone number or Internet
address.
The technology integrates tools like e-mail, instant messaging, group chat,
desktop sharing, co-browsing, and calendaring applications with communications
devices and applications, telephony, wired and wireless; voice messaging; and
audio, video, and Web conferencing to do all that and much more.
Trend in collaboration
Some of the leading players in the space believe that India is entering into
the second phase of Internet usage, where the next major market transition will
be driven by collaboration and facilitated by Web 2.0 technologies.
A lot of convergence of voice, video, and data with mobility, that would
further enable in-person collaboration and interaction, is another trend that is
predicted. At present the latest trends that vendors are exploring include
personalization, online collaboration, and adaptivity-changing the online
experience to reflect the visitor's interests and behaviors.
Urvashi Kaul
urvashik@cybermedia.co.in