Overview of CollabWorx Secure Real-Time Collaboraton platform

Our products are built around a platform for sharing applications (rather than sharing displays) in an Internet environment. The platform is the first complete, commercial solution for “collaborative computing”.

There are many companies and many solutions out there, claiming to offer support for collaborative process. Our approach is distinctly different from any of these offerings. Instead of trying to build an ad-hoc system supporting just one application domain—such as web conferencing, distance learning, or on-line customer support—we have invested in basic research into architectures of the web-based collaboration systems. This research, sponsored by DARPA and other DoD agencies, resulted in construction of a general platform for browser-based collaborative computing. Since the platform is a central technology around all our products are built, it requires a name. We call it CollabWorx SRTC™.

CollabWorx SRTC ™ platform is browser-based. This means several things:

1. Most of the system components execute in the browser. Since web browser's primary function is to access and display data, the collaborative component our system adds makes it automatically possible to share all these data. This has profound consequences. All human collaboration processes revolve around data, and, hence, building collaboration systems inside of the browser is the only logical architecture for Internet collaboratories.
   
   
2. Unlike for all earlier attempts to implement CSCW (Computer Supported Collaborative Work) platforms, CollabWorx™ benefits from the well-defined data model: all data handled by modern browsers are accessible via the general Document Object Model (DOM). Such a consistent data model never existed before. This is why software vendors had to resort to the awkward, non-scalable "display sharing" technology (e.g. MS NetMeeting, AT&T Virtual Network Computing, or Symantec PC Anywhere). A "shareable DOM" is a natural way of building scalable application—sharing systems of the future. CollabWorx holds a patent for “collaborative browser” technology.
   
   
3. For the users, a browser-based system means they can stay in the very familiar environment that just became richer by adding user-to-user real-time communication capability. No installation of a dozen of different applications is necessary to establish various collaborative environments such as web conferencing, on-line customer support, or on-line corporate training. Our basic platform supports all of these, and the specific application is loaded from our application server on demand.

Applications built on top of CollabWorx platform provide a number of customer benefits:

• Easy data sharing: any data that Internet infrastructure can serve can be shared by our platform. No special applications are needed.
  
  
• Authoring system independence: Our data-sharing model is completely independent on the tools used to create contents. This applies equally to contents served from standard HTTP servers and to contents served from any Application Server. Authoring system independence is a critical factor with enormous impact on the implementation cost of an interactive Web conferencing.
  
  
• Scalability: All applications based on CollabWorx SRTC™ platform have excellent scalability. In simplest terms, this translates to the number of users that can concurrently participate in various on-line conferences, Internet presentations, real-time interactive distance learning events, or on-line training sessions. Unlike the “shared display” based application sharing (such as MS NetMeeting), which breaks down when number of users exceeds a handful, CollabWorx SRTC™-based products can handle even thousands of concurrent users, depending on network conditions and the requested level of interactivity of the event.
  
  
• Low TCO for end user: since one platform installed on the end-users machines can support a variety of conferencing, collaborative, and interactive on-line applications, the support cost for such a platform is reduced. This translates into low Total Cost of Ownership to the end user, and is a powerful bargaining argument for ASPs offering services based on our platform.
  
  
• Adaptability: Adaptability is key in the eBusiness market since no product works “out of the box.” Due to the flexibility of our platform, we can inexpensively and quickly adapt our products to user's precise business requirements. In the context of ASP business, this allows us to provide ASPs with a variety of products and services they need to attract and hold to customers seeking one partner with a rich service offering.
  
  
• Low service implementation cost for ASP: ASP economy is economy of scale. As service prices are reduced in competitive market place, the ASP with low operational cost and many customers will survive. It is critical to deploy a technology that can flexibly support many services. CollabWorx™ is such a technology, essentially supporting all applications that require human-human interaction.
  
  
• Compatible application set: All our products are inter-operable. The customer can choose the applications he needs, and we will implement them within the CollabWorx SRTC™platform.
  
  
• Extensible platform: All our products are web-based and open, allowing us to easily integrate new Internet technologies as they emerge. This means our customers don't have to worry about being locked into a proprietary technology with no growth potential.
  
  
• Open platform: For advanced or technically savvy customers, we offer a set of Application Programmer Interfaces to our platform. This enables a process of development of complex custom applications. We can demonstrate on case studies that use of our platform and our APIs reduces implementation time of custom collaborative application by order of magnitude. We provide tutoring and consulting services for independent developers. In the near future we intend to start an initiative to standardize the procedures of development of collaborative Web applications.
  
  
• Built-in support channels and mechanisms: It is one thing to build a shrink-wrapped software product for mass market; it is another to implement a software product that is supportable when provided as a service. Our product platform pays special attention to support issues. For instance, all our conferencing and distance learning products includes built-in, private (out-of-band) support channels for system administrators, customer support representatives, instructors and other users. All such channels are configurable and can be adapted to the ASPs architecture. Further, all our servers come with data logging capabilities that can be integrated with the ASP billing and invoicing syste

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