The Evolution of Collaboration Tools

Mobile, social and from the cloud

Not too long ago, a large portion of collaboration tools were installed on-premise. Features for mobile use were almost totally lacking and social networks were hooked up to content management and document management systems, if they existed. It wasn’t until the advent of cloud computing that it became possible to collaborate on the go, in real time, opening new horizons.

Today, cloud versions of enterprise collaboration platforms are standard and most social network functions are developed as native apps, based on social business concepts. Categories such as unified communications, file sharing and synchronization have taken on social network functions. What they all have in common: they are mobile, social and cloud-based.[1]

The needs of large corporations are complex, and include the ability to customize individual business processes and deep integration with existing back-end systems. As such, the focus of enterprise collaboration software tools is shifting constantly. A large number of providers offer collaboration tools to meet these needs, each with a different weighting of the collaboration functions.

[1] ZDNET: Today’s enterprise collaboration landscape 2013

more:

White paper: ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION (2014, Erika Merz on behalf of Deutsche Telekom, EMS and in Cooperation with Sven K. Hübner)