Collaborative Service Clouds

Thanks to Web 2.0 technologies, many computer-supported activities are provided on-line, which enhances the possibility of sharing information and resources. In particular, the concept of service cloud is emerging as a paradigm for offering Web-based services based on an open distributed architecture. In this paper, the authors propose a framework supporting the management of Collaborative Service Clouds, i.e., open, Web-based environments that enable the integration of heterogeneous services, and provide a user-centered unified management of business and private activities. The management of Collaborative Service Clouds is enabled by an open architecture, which provides services and data synchronization, coupled with a set of core applications supporting essential aspects of the functionality of the environment.