A Reference Framework for the COMIC Shared Object Service

The tendency of modern companies to organise almost every aspect of operation by a continuous flow and exchange of data covers all economic areas and involves many different kinds of tasks. Applications range from remote information retrieval systems, electronic access to bank accounts, process scheduling systems for power plants or chemical factories, to coordination, cooperation and communication software in big multinational enterprises. Additionally, drastically falling hardware prices mean that access to computing resources is no longer restricted to organisations. Private use of electronic services over wide-area networks constitutes a fast growing market. As a consequence, the general ability to handle data is drifting towards a serious crisis. A ten-thousand fold increase in machine and network performance during the recent decades is not the reason for this development. Rather it is caused by the fact that common paradigms for development and maintenance of software are no longer sufficient to satisfy the increasing demand for data management. The COMIC project has approached the above problems in the domain of computer support for cooperative work. The COMIC Shared Object Server (SOS) is intended to address the specific problems that arise in cooperative situations [Rodden, 93; Rodden, 92]. A range of concepts has been proposed that we believe to be suited to enable effective support for distributed work arrangements, and which are demonstrated by prototype implementations. Some specific facilities provided by the design of the SOS are: • Provision of integrated facilities that enable the support for synchronous as well as asynchronous communication, collaboration and coordination tasks. • Enabling shared awareness in distributed work arrangements. • Support for inter organisational cooperation.