A detailed introduction to interdisciplinary application area of distributed systems, namely the computer support of individuals trying to solve a problem in cooperation with each other but not necessarily having identical work places or working times. The book is addressed to students of distributed systems, communications, information science and socio-organizational theory, as well as to users and developers of systems with group communication and cooperation as top priorities.

Part I. Introduction to Distributed Systems and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: Fundamental Principles of Distributed Systems; Computer-Supported Cooperative Work.- Part II. Basic Concepts of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: Concepts of Asynchronous and Synchronous Cooperation; Concurrency Control; Replication and Concurrency Control.- Part III. Application Classes of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: Communication Systems and Shared Information Spaces; Workflow Management, Conversation and Coordination Systems; Workgroup Computing; Multi-agent Systems.- References.- List of Figures.- List of Tables.- Index.