The Case Against "Groupware"
The initiation of an open-source groupware project by a friend inspired a particularly sharp rant against the entire Groupware genre by former Netscape developer and Mozilla lead Jamie Zawinski. The posting digresses a bit into a drinking-buddy diatribe, but much of it will ring true to anyone who has been around large enterprise collaboration or content projects, in particular this: "...[B]uild software that people want to use instead of software that managers want to buy. When words like 'groupware' and 'enterprise' start getting tossed around, you're doing the latter." One commenter replies, "What's all this nonsense about designing software for the user? Don't you know there's no money in that?" As a technology buyer, remember that the choices are yours...