Pugmarks offers instant, out of the box hosted solution that can be deployed in shared or dedicated manner. Either way these solutions provide complete SLA-backed security, optional SSL encryption.

In this era of globalization, the value of working together, or collaborating, can have major impact on how your business runs. One can play very conservative, because of notions of competitiveness, lack of trust, security concerns, cost and complexity, and risks of allowing business-to-business collaboration. However, not riding the next big business wave while your competition is enjoying its advantages, you could run a serious risk of getting antiquated. Most decision makers are beginning to realize the necessity of collaboration and implementing it in some way or the other.

Although some vendors might have you think otherwise, collaboration is not a synonym for communication. E-mail and even the telephone can support collaboration, but communication alone does not constitute collaboration. In its purest form, collaboration consists of two or more individuals or companies working together to achieve a common goal or create mutual value. By combining resources—whether that means sharing customer information, supply chain data, intellectual property or R&D expertise—collaborators jointly create what they cannot produce efficiently on their own. Forms of collaboration can be classified by the relationship between the collaborating parties, which often sets the tone for the partnership.
It takes a shared space to create shared understanding. If there's no shared space, there's no collaboration. Technologies that create shared space and tools for collaboration fall into two categories: real-time and asynchronous/persistent.

Real-time technologies, such as Web conferencing and instant messaging, require collaborators to log on at the same time to, say, conduct an online meeting to review design specs or to resolve an issue by chatting through IM. Asynchronous tools, such as online collaborative workspaces and e-mail, allow collaborators to contribute on their own schedule, a particularly useful feature for managing projects that span time zones. Workspaces such as Microsoft's SharePoint, IBM/Lotus's Workplace and several industry-specific tools (including PTC's Windchill ProjectLink for the manufacturing industry, Agile for the high-tech industry and Freeboarder for the apparel industry) provide an electronic medium for collaborating, offering capabilities such as messaging, calendaring, document management and workflow automation. Users can see what their colleagues are doing, and everyone with appropriate access credentials can view—and add comments to—the latest version of a document.
When supporting person-to-person or group-to-group collaboration, think about the complexity of the interaction and whether individuals or teams will be working together in real-time or on their own schedules

For B2B collaborations, establishing a shared workspace on neutral territory, administered by a third party, can help put collaborators on equal footing and allay concerns about who controls shared data.

Pugmarks Solution: Pugmarks offers instant, out of the box hosted solution that can be deployed in shared or dedicated manner. Either way these solutions provide complete SLA-backed security, optional SSL encryption. In Pugmarks solution, the investment required to make it happen is insignificant, mostly on the process side. The payoff can be tremendous when you do not have to deal with the infrastructure and management issues.