Presence Awareness Tools for Virtual Enterprises

With the growth of the world wide economy the importance of virtual enterprises is growing. There are many positive aspects to the distributed work force, such as the ability to take advantage of local expertise, time zone differences to enable twenty-four hour development, the advantages of outsourcing, and others. However, there are also many challenges to overcome before a distributed work force can be as efficient or more so than a co-located team. Problems range from issues of time zone differences, different vacation schedules, cultural and language barriers, to the basic problem of being distant from one’s co-workers. The distance leads to the loss of informal or impromptu communications between the distributed team members. The distance between the teams tends to force most communication into formal, scheduled channels, as opposed to the impromptu meetings that characterize co-located teams.