This issue of The Edge shows how collaboration technologies are improving government organizations. Collaborative Targeting addresses battlefield information overload. Collaborative Virtual Workspace is refining intelligence analysis. This issue also describes a web-based knowledge system, a web-based expert finder, a model workplaces initiative, and MITRE's leadership of a standards working group to evaluate collaboration tools for the Defense Information Infrastructure. Also MITRE is piloting Extranet technology to prove that Secure Collaboration is no oxymoron.

The first collaboration offerings were asynchronous tools such as e-mail, discussion databases, and group scheduling. Synchronous (real-time) collaboration tools such as audio and video conferencing, shared whiteboards, and shared applications are now becoming more popular and more tightly integrated into the desktop environment. Vendors are just starting to supply these services bundled as extensions to the operating environment, blurring the distinction between asynchronous and synchronous collaboration tools.

Desktop computing will evolve to a point where people will become primary objects (along with information and applications). Collaboration capabilities (such as audio and video conferencing, real-time application sharing, and shared whiteboards) will be common tools available from the desktop. We will move toward a complete collaboration environment, which will integrate applications, data, and co-workers, and will offer user-location independence and transparency. Effective implementation, however, demands an organizational culture that fosters collaboration.

For more information, please contact guest editor Esther Rhode using the employee directory.