The support of mobile-awareness in collaborative groupware

Abstract

This paper explores the need for mobile-awareness in groupware designed for use in a mobile environment. The motivation for providing this additional form of awareness is that current groupware tends to assume a reliable and constant quality of communications that does not exist in a mobile environment. The implications of making this false assumption are twofold: first, systems that enforce certain ordering and reliability semantics across all operations can suffer drastic performance penalties; second, users are given insufficient awareness of (and control over) the effect of the unreliable communications environment on their collaboration. The support of mobile-awareness implies providing users with appropriate and sufficient inforraation to adapt their behaviour (and the behaviour of the system) in response to changes in the quality of group communications available. To support the development of mobile-aware groupware we have built a flexible Quality of Service (QoS)-based group service capable of providing group-oriented feedback to application level services. © Springer-Verlag London Ltd.