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The term computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) was first coined by Irene Greif and Paul M. Cashman in 1984, at a workshop attended by individuals interested in using technology to support people in their work. At about this same time, in 1987 Dr. Charles Findley presented the concept of collaborative learning-work. According to Carstensen & Schmidt(1999), CSCW addresses "how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems." On the one hand, many authors consider that CSCW and groupware are synonyms. On the other hand, different authors claim that while groupware refers to real computer-based systems, CSCW focuses on the study of tools and techniques of groupware as well as their psychological, social, and organizational effects.
CSCW [is] a generic term, which combines the understanding of the way people work in groups with the enabling technologies of computer networking, and associated hardware, software, services and techniques. Wilson (1991)
The CSCW Matrix was introduced in 1988 by Johansen and appears in (Baecker,1995)
Face to face interaction
Remote interaction
Continuous task
Communication + Coordination
Groupware can be divided into three categories depending on the level of collaboration—communication tools, conferencing tools and collaborative management (Co-ordination) tools.
Electronic communication tools send messages, files, data, or documents between people and hence facilitate the sharing of information. Examples include:
Conferencing tools facilitate the sharing of information, but in a more interactive way.
Examples :
Collaborative management tools facilitate the management of group activities.
Examples:
Enterprise 2.0 is a label for the use of social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.
So, is social networking simply a productivity threat or can companies learn to live with Facebook and its ilk? "My gut instinct tells me that we're going to end up with a Facebook for the enterprise, or Facebook in the enterprise," said Bradshaw. "There's too much at stake for organisations not to start looking at bringing this stuff under their control." "The idea is to use social-networking technology to enable members to share non-core business advice and information." (source)
"Cloud Computing is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc." (IEEE Internet Computing 2008)
Cloud computing is a general concept that incorporates software as a service (SaaS), Web 2.0 and other recent, well-known technology trends, in which the common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. For example, Google Apps provides common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.
