Esther Dyson on future Collaboration Ware: "In ten years there will be Wi-Fi wireless Internet access everywhere," she says. "I will have a good software tool for filtering my e-mail and categorizing it. My calendar will be integrated with my address book. Everything will be quicker. I'll have a cloth to put on my lap as a keyboard. The little device that serves as my cellphone-cum-PC will be incredibly light. And I'll know where my luggage is because it will have a chip in it." She notes that she currently doesn't use any new collaboration software, but sticks to EMail.

Likewise, [Steve Yost] of Quick Topic thinks that people revert to EMail because If one person in a group can't or won't use the new tech, the forum reverts to the least common denominator - ubiquitous email. That's an interesting point, but I think there are a couple approaches that might help.

• the way RoundUp generates a per-thread email list/archive makes it easier to manage email-based collaboration. But it's still largely email-based. But, on the other hand, other parties to a thread can occasionally do some housekeeping by providing structured data around the thread.

• one possible reason people revert to email is that they want to have a single in-box to monitor. Under that theory, they'd be more open to using additional applications/processes if everything came together in a Universal Inbox.

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