TELESOL :: Telework tools

Telework Solutions for Promotion of
EU Cooperation in Business and Research
with the Commonwealth of Independent States

Project No IST-1999-29038

Telework tools

	What's new
	Summary
	Objectives
	Consortium
	Partners
	Events
	Telework community
	Business telework systems
	Telework tools
	Training materials
	Countries' information
	Local web-sites
	Documents
	References
	Contact information

Telework is based on the modern information technologies, and the successful telework is impossible without the use of many telework tools. Many general tools used in telework, you can find on "training materials" pages. For example, you can find there the link http://www.flexwork.eu.com/members/tech_brief.html; this page contains information about numerous tools used in telework. Description of many tools one can find in handbook on telework (http://www.flexwork.eu.com/members/downloads/HBv1ru.pdf).

The tools described below are less general and more telework-specific.

1. EDNES/UNIDO Ready-For-E-Business-Tool. This tool helps the companies and organizations to self-evaluate their readiness for e-business and, in particular, for telework. UNIDO's SME branch developed this e-readiness tool, covering numerous issues and aspects of e-business. Manager or business consultant answering these questions, more clearly realizes difficulties and advantages of introducing e-business in his organization. EDNES complemented this tool by the system of telework aptitude tests. The tool is web-based (click here!), but it is also available on CD.

2. Electronic certificates. Telework as a form of conducting business relations online demands the trust between partners who probably do not have a chance to personally meet each other. They also need to establish secure communications, closed to all entities outside of their business. The answer to this issue is PKI - Public Key Infrastructure. PKI system is stable and universal, working across different geographical locations. A global player in PKI area is company WiseKey, brought to TELESOL by UNIDO. On WiseKey page you can find a lot of additional information on the subject.
Reference:
http://www.eto.ch.

3. Printing solutions. In our time, when the use of internet technologies allows not only to exchange the information, but to work on remote computers, the issue of possibilities to print on the remote printers becomes rather actual. This is not so simple if we are talking not about a simple text printing, but about the printing of professional graphical documents. We also have to remember that Internet is, generally speaking, the open network. It does not take much trouble to intercept information there, and this raises an issue of security and confidentiality of the remote printing.
References:
Article about remote printing: remote.pdf;
Remote printing solutions in CIS: http://www.nicotech.ru/jetcaps/index.htm.

4. Presence awareness service (former title - Virtual Presence System)
Presence Awareness lets people realize who else is around. In the web context Presence Awareness allows people to 'see' each other while they are browsing the same web-page or web-site. This fundamental property of Presence Awareness enables ad-hoc communication of people and also more substantial communication since people with similar interests meet on the same web locations.

The Presence Awareness service developed by University of Ulm (Germany) is the backbone of multilingual Collaborative Browsing User Agent (CBUA), compiled by CGDS, Moscow. It supports Russian language so that it is well fitting for use within the CIS countries. To allow EU-CIS team work in areas such as research and education it also supports the English language.
References:
Presence Awareness Service overview: http://www-vs.informatik.uni-ulm.de/virtual_presence/;
Collaborative browsing user agent in action: http://www.ednes.org/wistcis/.

5. ORACLE^© Enterprise grid computing is a method of deploying and managing pools of storage and servers that can then be allocated to the applications or information services that run a business. It relies on high levels of management automation, software standardization, built-in fault tolerance through component redundancy and the power and cost-effectiveness of industry standard servers and storage.
References:
Enterprise grid computing demonstration (Flash/EXE)
Read more about the grid on http://www.oracle.com/grid

6. EuroITX.com - the European Information Technology Exchange - is the European one-stop-shop which provides information and services for both Buyers and Suppliers of offshore IT (enabled) services outsourcing.
Reference:
EuroITX.com