Evaluating Groupware in a Commercial Context

This paper reports on the installation and use of two commercial ‘groupware’ systems, a videolink and electronic document exchange, in a major clearing bank in the UK. It suggests some of the complexities involved in evaluating groupware in a business such that recognising and understanding even such gross terms as ‘success’ and ‘failure’ is far from easy. Consequently it argues that a more nuanced appreciation of success and failure needs to be developed and, therefore, some form of ethnographic, ‘illuminative’ evaluation may prove commercially worthwhile.