E-Collaboration: An Introduction

Today, enterprises worldwide are depending on e-collaboration tools to improve their business processes and reap significant business results. The integrated collaboration tools assist in increased efficiencies, cost effective delivery of services, enhanced organizational intelligence, and stronger relationship with key stakeholders and effective sharing of resources. The evolving web environments and the growing global computer networks, coupled with increasing power and lower costs of computers, have further enhanced the adoption of e-collaboration tools among individuals, organizations and society on a global scale. This, in turn, has created an e-collaboration tools industry with major players like IBM, Microsoft, INTEL and Groove Networks. The diffusing impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on the pattern of collaboration at different levels of society, is creating newer communication experiences for the institutions and businesses worldwide. The ubiquity of the Internet, coupled with an increasing reliance on net-based collaboration tools like e-mail, videoconferencing, intranets, net meeting, instant messaging, blogging, wiki and Twiki, etc., is creating a host of opportunities for the individuals, businesses and public institutions. The emerging practices of e-governance, e-business, e-learning, etc., are further leveraging the phenomenon. Evidently, the spread of e-collaboration tools which help an enterprise both internally and externally, is likely to change the traditional business relationships.