Cloud collaboration

Cloud collaboration is a method of sharing and co-authoring s via cloud computing, whereby documents are uploaded to a central "cloud" for storage, where they can then be accessed by other users. Cloud collaboration technologies allow users to upload, comment and collaborate on documents and even amend the document itself, evolving the document. Businesses in the last few years have increasingly been switching to use of cloud collaboration. Cloud computing is a marketing term for technologies that provide software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. A parallel to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid, where end-users consume power without needing to understand the component devices or infrastructure required to utilize the technology. Collaboration refers to the ability of workers to work together simultaneously on a particular task. Document collaboration can be completed face to face. However, collaboration has become more complex, with the need to work with people all over the world in real time on a variety of different types of documents, using different devices. A 2003 report mapped out five reasons why workers are reluctant to collaborate more. These are: People resist sharing their knowledge. Safety issues Users are most comfortable using e-mail as their primary electronic collaboration tool. People do not have incentive to change their behaviour. Teams that want to or are selected to use the software do not have strong team leaders who push for more collaboration. Senior management is not actively involved in or does not support the team collaboration initiative. As a result, many providers created cloud collaboration tools. These include the integration of email alerts into collaboration software and the ability to see who is viewing the document at any time. All the tools a team could need are put into one piece of software so workers no longer have to rely on email.