P EER - TO-P EER AND GROUP C OLLABORATION - DO THEY ALWAYS MATCH? Claus Eikemeier, Ulrike Lechner Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Bremen, Germany {cei|lechner}@informatik.uni-bremen.de Abstract Online collaboration systems allow workers to cooper- ate and communicate with each other even if working in dispersed settings. They enable frictionless sharing of ex- plicit and implicit knowledge. Several applications that im- plement a support media for team and group collaboration are implemented and already used for a long time. Since some time Peer-to-Peer based tools are a serious alterna- tive to those established applications of client/server type. They seem to provide better services at even lower costs. But there are important but commonly not recognized dif- ferences between the particular types of P2P applications. This demands for further research, in particular on non- technical aspects. The paper provides a research frame to enable covering descriptions of P2P tools from different views. The frame includes a data/content, a user/community and a contex- tual view besides other more common focii. As example Groove.net, a commercially available P2P collaboration tool suite is explained along the research frame. Teams vs. communities is rarely in the focus of P2P re- search. Even if these parameters seem to be highly relevant in practical use as they separate different classes of of P2P systems they are rarely mentioned as distinctive characte- ristics. The paper uses data from a research survey among teams that use Groove for their teamwork. It shows that not all P2P tools fit to the needs of every size of group. Groove seems to support teams but does not match the demands of communities. As well one can state that communities need their own type of P2P tools for efficient support of the colla- boration processes. Therefore the proposed research frame offers valuable pointers to aspects that need to be considered in discussions - in this case it points to the users of the system. 1 Introduction Peer-to-Peer is one of the hot topics in the field of com- munications and collaboration support. But the notion P2P itself is not clearly defined (e.g. [10, p. 18]) and quite of- ten, only descriptive characteristics of systems are given for distinguishing these applications from others like the tradi- tional client-server based ones. There is only a rough idea of what influences the success or failure of P2P systems. Very often only technical aspects are viewed to explain this new kind of information systems. Recent research focuses more and more on sociology (soft factors) to explain why many P2P systems succeed so well. There is a need to understand the different factors influencing the adoption of the systems if they should be used in business environments in addition or as replacement to traditional systems. One of the key questions is what type of P2P system is likely to succeed in a certain setting. This paper focuses on analysing the factors that affect the usage of P2P systems in different groups. We propose a research frame (P2P Layer Model) to get a deeper insight into the P2P system. This model is holistic in the sense that it combines low- and high-level views from technical, so- ciological, economical and other views. It provides a com- prehensive base to analyze and compare existing and new applications. According to the research model we will explain that the requirements of project teams and communities in terms of P2P collaboration systems are different, in some cases they are even oppositional. The paper points to exisiting appli- cations to support those different groups. Besides focussing on the group other aspects that influence the fit of a certain P2P application to the needs of the group are also mentioned briefly. The paper is organized as follows. In section two, the proposed research model is explained briefly. Explanations on the relation to the P2P paradigm are given. In the third section, the description of the different group characteris- tics are explained: we start with explaining the project team Proceedings of the 13th IEEE International Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WET ICE’04) 1524-4547/04 $ 20.00 IEEE