Social software and online collaboration tool: A comparison based on user expectations

Collaboration systems are a key point in modern Information Systems. They are very useful when companies base their work on "knowledge". Collaboration systems help knowledge workers to share knowledge and to work together regardless of where they are located. There are several solutions from turnkey solutions, to ad-hoc, as well as customizable solutions. Collaboration systems can be classified as social software and online collaboration tools, and they are useful both for big and small to medium sized companies. The collaboration systems promise to increase knowledge worker efficiency, and this is an important goal for all companies; especially small and medium sized companies. The real problem is that, very often, a knowledge worker does not use the tool. In this paper, starting from an empirical study, the expectations of the knowledge workers and of the companies are defined and a survey of several collaboration based on them will be presented.