Web 2.0 collaborative tools for SMEs: A survey

Organizations today operate in a complex, unpredictable, competitive and global business environment. These demand utilizing Internet-based tools to support more collaborative activities and allow the integration of business processes and the sharing of information. It is often that large organizations have more financial and technical resources compared to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to leverage the availability of free web 2.0 collaborative tools. Web 2.0 tools provide an efficient and accessible means of encouraging and supporting team members working together on shared objectives. This study investigates twenty available web 2.0 collaborative tools that illustrate different way of collaboration and different set of features. We then organize these features by four major function categories: Communication, information sharing, electronic calendar and project management, in order to identify which of the collaborative tools would be suitable for a particular organization. Specifically, this study will increase SMEs to be aware what the current available Web 2.0 collaborative tools have to offer and also help them in selecting the right tools based on their organizational needs.