26 January 1997 1 of 7 WebDesk: the Tele-Conferencing Service of MATES Peter Parnes, Dick Schefström, Kåre Synnes Centre for Distance-spanning Technology, CDT University of Luleå {peppar,dick,unicorn}@cdt.luth.se This paper describes WebDesk, a distributed electronic conference environment in conjunc- tion with the World Wide Web, WWW, where users share a common view of the distributed workspace and can interact with each other through audio, video, drawing and annotation of existing documents. WebDesk adds this functionality by using the new and evolving Java- technology developed by SUN. 1.0 Introduction With this paper, we present a collaborative environment called the WebDesk, that attempts to create a single homogeneous and integrated framework for distributed collaboration. The WebDesk is part of the Esprit 20598 MATES project, which is supported by the Information Technology part of the 4:th Framework Program of the European Union. We believe that the WebDesk will be a forerunner in utilizing advanced computer supported coop- eration for Distributed Engineering Environments and Interactive Remote Maintenance systems. Systems development in general is well suited for the application of electronic communications. It is a genu- inely team-oriented effort with a work process traditionally based on advanced computerized support. These cir- cumstances and the fact that most developers are mature computer users equipped with powerful workstations, makes it reasonable to view systems development as an unusually good candidate for successful early use of advanced multi-modal communication applications. Utilizing distributed multimedia in this context will allow us to address a number of important topics: Distrib- uted projects, most large projects cannot be located to a single site, and have an explicit need for tools that help manage distributed settings; Virtual organizations, projects should be possible to set up using the best possible competence at the time, independent of physical location; and Increased quality and productivity, improved infor- mation dissemination in a distributed organization is likely to increase quality as well as productivity. A lot of work has already been dedicated to the creation of tools and infrastructures addressing those problems, such as: asynchronous message systems (e.g., Internet e-mail [P95]), synchronous collaboration systems (e.g., shared applications [C92]) and distributed document publishing and browsing systems (e.g., the World Wide Web and its clients [BCLNS94]). We observe that a complete collaboration environment must include support for both synchronous interaction, asynchronous message exchange, and distributed document publishing and browsing. The goal of WebDesk is to create an integrated environment spanning these areas. 1.1 Asynchronous message systems Message systems and electronic mail is the oldest and most proven of electronic collaboration vehicles. In recent years, development has moved on to the use of audio, video, graphics, and supporting documents. This idea of multimedia mail, is made possible by means of the Internet MIME standard, (Borenstein & Freed 1992). By fur- ther generalizing the electronic mail idea into Computational Mail, (Borenstein 1992, 1993), we do not only com- municate through exchange of passive data, but by executable programs.