Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
products. Office Communicator, for example, is a Microsoft product developed to allow
better and faster collaboration. Other companies are also heavily investing in GSS software.
In addition to Lotus Notes, IBM has developed Workplace to allow workers to collaborate
more efficiently in doing their jobs. Microsoft's NetMeeting product supports application
sharing in multiparty calls. NetDocuments Enterprise can be used for Web collaboration.
The groupware is intended for legal, accounting, and real-estate businesses. A Breakout
Session feature allows two people to take a copy of a document to a shared folder for joint
revision and work. The software also permits digital signatures and the ability to download
and work on shared documents on handheld computers. Other GSS software packages in-
clude Collabnet, Collabra Share, OpenMind, and TeamWare. All of these tools can aid in
group decision making.
Shared electronic calendars
can be used to coordinate meetings and
out time for all members of the decision-making team. Some employees, however, don't like
the use of shared electronic calendars. A member of one team said, “It's an intrusion. It's just
a theft of your time.”
(
www.microsoft.com
),
WebOffice (
www.weboffice.com
),
and BaseCamp (
www.basecamphq.com
)
sites that some organizations use to help people and groups stay connected and coordinate
collaborate with other doctors, share their medical experiences, and even help make diag-
however, worry about security and corporate compliance issues in adopting Web 2.0
technologies.
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In addition to stand-alone products, GSS software is increasingly being incorporated into
existing software packages. Today, some transaction processing and enterprise resource plan-
ning packages include collaboration software. Some ERP producers (see Chapter 9), for
example, have developed groupware to facilitate collaboration and to allow users to integrate
applications from other vendors into the ERP system of programs. Today, groupware can
interact with wireless devices. Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry software, offers
mobile communications, access to group information, meeting schedules, and other services
that can be directly tied to groupware software and servers. In addition to groupware, GSSs
use a number of tools discussed previously, including the following:
•
E-mail, instant messaging (IM), and text messaging (TM)
•
Videoconferencing
•
Group scheduling
•
Project management
•
Document sharing
GSS Alternatives
Group support systems can take on a number of network configurations, depending on the
needs of the group, the decision to be supported, and the geographic location of group
members. GSS alternatives include a combination of decision rooms, local area networks,
teleconferencing, and wide area networks.
•
The
decision room
is ideal for situations in which decision makers are located in the
same building or geographic area and the decision makers are occasional users of the
GSS approach. In some cases, the decision room might have a few computers and a
projector for presentations. In other cases, the decision room can be fully equipped with
a network of computers and sophisticated GSS software. A typical decision room is shown
in Figure 10.19.
decision room
A room that supports decision
making, with the decision makers
in the same building, combining
face-to-face verbal interaction with
technology to make the meeting
more effective and efficient.
•
The local area decision network
can be used when group members are located in the same
building or geographic area and under conditions in which group decision making is
frequent. In these cases, the technology and equipment for the GSS approach is placed
directly into the offices of the group members.
