Collaboratory systems: Taxonomy I

• Basic architectures

  • Shared display: single instance of application, user input & display replicated via conference agent
    • Entire functionality of application is shared
    • Examples: Shared X (HP), NetMeeting (MS), ProShare (Intel), ShowMe (Sun), Timbuktu (Farallon)
    • Advantages: simple to implement
    • Disadvantages:
      • functional: simplistic, inflexible, awkward session control model, insecure (no data access control), no support for asynchronous collaboration, race condition problems
      • performance: generate heavy data traffic, unacceptable on WANs
      • incompatible with Web programming model assuming local intelligence

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