(2003-11-30) Messaging Collaboration Rss

Michael Caton on the near-future of Collaboration Ware. The collaborative team applications, from team work spaces to Web Conferencing, continue to fall short as far as exploiting how people work. With users locked in to their messaging (EMail, Instant Messaging) and collaboration (PIM/GroupWare) client, be it Microsoft's MsOutlook or IBM's Lotus Notes, the individual tools used to manage productivity, contacts, schedules and tasks frequently don't align well with team applications residing on the Web.

Steve Gillmor predicts Bottom-Up Application Integration via RSS. RSS information routers (Proxy Server? RssAggregator-s?) will emerge in 2004 with the following characteristics... Armed with these tools, new industries will emerge in rapid succession... A fluid alliance of Web Services architects, Open Source contributors, Open Standards negotiators, Entrepreneur-s and inventors are making it so. Even the disenfranchised have a chance in this remarkably transparent ecology.