Software engineering of collaborative systems

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Computers are increasingly used to help people to collaborate. Email has become ubiquitous, and is now complemented by technologies such as instant messaging and short message service (SMS) on mobile phones. Wikis allow collaborative creation of web sites, supporting collaborative projects. Electronic meeting systems have become a popular alternative to co-located meetings, allowing people to converse and share documents in real time. Modern personal digital assistants have blurred the line between telephone and computer, supporting wireless connectivity for email, agenda updates, SMS and voice functions. Modern online games allow thousands of people to interact in real time in a shared persistent environment. Tools such as these are difficult to build. They require simple yet powerful user interfaces that allow people to collaborate as effectively as when they meet in person. At the same time, collaborative systems are built on top of the Internet, and therefore suffer the consequences of its inadequate speed and unreliable operation.