Beyond Web technology-lessons learnt from BSCW

The World Wide Web has become an established platform for the development of various types of applications, including those in the area of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). The Web provides a common infrastructure for building easily accessible applications, but these still suffer from inherent shortcomings of the underlying Web technology. We describe the BSCW shared workspace system, a Web based groupware system developed at GMD. The BSCW system provides basic cooperation support through 'shared workspaces' which can be used for information sharing by group members. We give an account of system limitations identified and how we overcame them. General requirements for further extensions of Web technology are stated and a short overview of current developments is given.