Collaboration between employees is a route to success. Planning meetings, meeting schedules, scheduling events and even sharing contact information, is a way of enabling your employees to make sure that they know what they are other people within the organisation are planning.

As many employees are now working outside of the main organisation, or simply outside the head office, collaboration is even more important. Everyone needs to know where they should be and at what time.

The use of different operating systems can make collaboration a real headache. Many organisations use Exchange Server or Lotus Notes, but there’s no Mac Lotus (yet!) and few Mac applications will support Exchange. The Mac Offic e 2008 will enable further collaboration and so will iCal 3, within Leopard. This will support the open CalDav standard, supported by most organisations, apart from Microsoft.

The option is to consider opensource software such as the forthcoming Chandler Project, which is a personal information manager (PIM) designed to work irrespective of platform. You can use it across a Windows, Mac or Linux operating system. You can use the desktop application to store your meetings, tasks, notes and more, then share this information with other users through your server.

Better still, the Chandler Project supply a hosting service that enables you to setup an online account and share your calendar and other information, online, with other users who you offer access. This means, irrespective of your location, you can share, invite and include other users in your plans.