Collaboration takes many forms. In the past, face-to-face meetings and telephone calls were the most common ways of collaboration. Today, we use instant messaging, text messaging, video conferencing, shared workspaces, webinars and many other tools to collaborate with one another. However, interpersonal communication or an exchange of documents is not collaboration in itself unless it has the aspect of collective effort attached to it. The main function of collaborative work is to alter a collaboration entity (i.e., the converse of transactional). The real collaboration technologies therefore deliver the functionality for many participants to improve a common deliverable. Record or document management, threaded discussions, audit history, and other mechanisms designed to capture the efforts of many into a managed content environment are typical of collaboration technologies. We use content management and workflow systems to control document sharing and revisions more efficiently.

 

Collaboration encompasses many forms of business communications. Everything from a customer query on the phone, to working on a shared project online, to a chat session to get information from a remote freelancer represents a form of collaboration, especially in the Unified Communications environment.

In both its Q3 and Q4 Forrester Waves™ on collaborative software analysis Forrester Research highlighted Microsoft® as a very strong player in the collaboration and enterprise content management system family with its Microsoft SharePoint® technologies. The analysis particularly stressed the exceptional strategic vision regarding modern collaboration systems.