A Framework for Distributed Mobile Multi-Media

The trends towards increased mobility and global business connections force workers and managers alike to communicate faster using multiple new types of media. At the same time, the means of communication must become easier to use and more secure, because the statically localized workplace of today will dissolve in the near future into a distributed and highly mobile multi-media communication platform. As the need for – or the freedom of – mobility as part of altering life styles becomes more and more commonplace, new tools are required that support these new forms of life and work, also called Virtual Workplaces. A virtual workplace is a distributed wireless multi-media system that is aimed at mobile individuals and supports the organization of people working together in groups for a number of projects. In the combined employment of sophisticated mobile and agent technologies, virtual workplace scenarios leap far beyond the current state of research in the so-called field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work.