Much of the technology we use in the workplace today is just an extension of the business tools we have used for centuries. Take email, for example. It is little more than an extension of putting things into envelopes. Yet the one-to-one relationships that these contemporary versions of old-fashioned concepts rely on are looking increasingly dated.

Smart companies are looking at ways to enable many-to-many relationships between employees. This comes under the umbrella of collaborative technology, tools and services that are designed to be shared by groups of people. Those people may be employees within the organisation but also employees of suppliers and even clients.

Collaborative technology comes in a number of forms:

• Wikis: These are collaborative websites that everyone in a specific group has access to and can edit. The best known wiki is the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia but businesses are using wikis internally to share information.

• Document sharing: This is an extension of the idea of sharing folders across a corporate network to the idea of a document space, where users can drag documents and share and work on them with others.

• Corporate social networks: Think Facebook but inside a business. Instead of sharing the news that you are currently eating a sandwich, you can share the problems you are working on and ask for help around your organisation. And let them know you are eating a sandwich.

• Corporate weblogs: Inside the corporate environment, blogs can act as both a repository of knowledge and as a way of keeping employees engaged with progress in various parts of the company. The emphasis is on the internal communication and discussion rather than engaging with the outside world.

• Content management systems: Behind many websites, Times Online included, there sits a content management system. These allow users to upload, and manage various types of content, such as words, pictures, audio and video files, and publish them in an organised way on the web without any need for specialist knowledge of languages such as HTML.

• Social business systems: These are fully fledged suites of applications, including all of the above and more, including instant messaging and forums.

Some of the biggest names in enterprise computing have naturally extended their reach to include collaborative technology. For the many companies who have embraced Microsoft products such as Windows and Office, the company’s SharePoint collaboration server technology is a logical step. Oracle’s Beehive, which brings together web conferencing, instant messaging, email, calendar, and team workspaces, also has a natural user base among its existing enterprise resource planning clients.

There are also newcomers on the scene. Confluence has put together an impressive roster of clients for its enterprise wiki technology, including the FBI, the United Nations and Playboy.

Jive’s Social Business Software and Clearspace technology, meanwhile, has developed a following, particularly among marketing professionals. It is not just whizzy technology companies that are using such products either. Last December, Jive announced that Screwfix, the UK tools, accessories and hardware supplier, had become a customer for its internal collaboration and social networking systems.