This article is the first of a series of articles exploring specific aspects of groupware. The brief informational articles in this series discuss some of the technologies associated with groupware, as well as some of the characteristics of groupware. Some of these characteristics may go hand in hand with business collaborative needs. Other characteristics go beyond what some groupware providers have to offer. The purpose of these articles is to equip the groupware user or investigator with helpful knowledge about the product in order to enable more effective use or to lead the investigator to the groupware service he or she is looking for. This first article explores Version History, a service that can be provided in groupware in order to simplify version tracking.

What is Groupware?

I have already mentioned that groupware helps businesses meet their collaborative needs, but groupware is not simply software used by businesses to organize documents and their drafts. Groupware deals specifically with the ad hoc nature of much of the document collaboration in today