Prerequisites for collaborative problem solving

In order to answer the question of whether the World Wide Web can serve as an infrastructure for business applications in a globally distributed and collaborative business environment, one has to step back and address firstly the questions concerning the prerequisites of collaborative problem solving: what is involved in collaborative problem solving in a business context in general and which techniques and what mechanisms available in the Internet can be used to support this task. The paper tries to develop a framework for classification and evaluation of current approaches and to offer perspectives for the development of new infrastructural concepts.