Yes / Against a background of the low engagement of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in e-business this paper investigates the significance of hosted services and firm aggregations. Based on qualitative case studies of aggregations of SMEs the research shows how e-business based innovation can occur, and identifies the extent to which the aggregation factor contributes to this innovation. The research confirms existing understanding of the importance of network based aggregations but adds to this with further detail and examples, including the `outsourcing¿ of innovation to the application service providers (ASPs).

The focus of this thesis is to analyze how online hosted applications available free of charge can be used to support work in virtual teams. The objectives are first to characterize virtual teams and groupware applications, and then to analyze the scope and functionality of available applications including more detailed evaluation and comparison of certain selected applications (which also support collaborative document creation). Key factors that need to be considered when choosing applications for virtual teams are identified along with other characteristics of virtual teams and team processes. A brief outline of the characteristic features of groupware applications and the SaaS model is followed by comprehensive analysis of various categories of available applications and their functionality. This analysis includes recommendations regarding the suitability of different applications for specific teams and situations. Services offered by suppliers of more complex sets of applications, which include applications supporting collaborative document creation, are analyzed and compared in greater detail. Some of these sets are recommended as a suitable foundation for complex support of the work of a virtual team. The whole analysis is closed by an illustrative case scenario, which can be used as an educational tool to enable people to get to know the basic principles of virtual teamwork and of some of the applications analyzed in this thesis.