See also: E-Mail Clients
Short form of: Workgrouping Software
Tools created for the purpose of coordination and and organization among a group. This usually includes calendaring software, e-mail software, management of business and employee contacts, and sharing capabilities.
Successful groupware are tools that make collaborating easy and simple (no fancy logins) and transparrent (who did what, how far along is it, how can I help?). Sometimes E-mail and Instant Messaging just aren’t enough and don’t give a sense of where the project is going development-wise nor provide a sense of real involvement.
Wikis (like this one) are often considered groupware and some software listed below allows for a Wiki.
Software
This list is not exhaustive. Alphabetical mentioned.
- ACT! – “The #1 best-selling contact management solution used by millions and praised by experts around the world. Get instant access to every contact detail to better manage and build your business relationships.”
- B.efficient – cross-platform commercial collaboration solution for business. Focus on easy-of-use, requiring minimal administration, and extensible.
- CoolTalk – older program from Netscape
- Evolution – *Nix e-mail client with Microsoft Exchange interface.
- FolderShare – secure file access with a simple Web browser (commercial with insecure trial version)
- GoldMine – commercial contacts management
- KDX – proprietary BBS-style
- Kroupware – A free, open-source *Nix Exchange replacement.
- Lotus Notes – Now owned by IBM and still very popular.
- Mozilla Calendar – free, cross-platform, open-source calendar system compatible with the OS X iCal.
- Novell GroupWise – feature-rich system of groupware also available for Linux
- OpenGroupware – A companion product to OpenOffice to build a cross-platform, open-source groupware product to replace Exchange.
- Outlook – Microsoft‘s popular e-mail and groupware client, interfacing with Exchange Server.
- PHPGroupware – “a free, open-source multi-user web-based GroupWare suite, which also serves to provide a good collection of webservice components, all of which can be accessed through XML–RPC so that you can easily integrate them into webservice applications of your own.”
- PRIVARIA – a secure, free, and open-source alternative but with less business focus than the above tools, providing more of an Instant Messaging service.
- WASTE – a clean, easy-to-use program similar to PRIVARIA. Much smaller footprint and from the creator of Winamp.
Server software
Note: There are a variety of Free Software groupware software like these on freshmeat.net but the three below come strongly recommended.
Related
TakeDown.NET -> “Groupware”