Among other things, groupware (for example task management collaborative packages) may differ by the way of distribution. Whether it is groupware freeware or a paid product (according to official positioning), both these kinds may have free and paid components in their distributional structure. For example, in the case of paid collabroative software it can be a free trial groupware version – 30-60 days evaluation copy. For freeware the situation may be quite different. Often, free status of software is predefined by its way of development, in other words it can be open source code packages.

 Open source collaborative software for Windows is called so because any private user or a company can take it as the basis for own product – groupware capabilities enable such product to be modified, redesigned, improved and redistributed as another software. There is not much of open source groupware suites for task management on the Web, but those some samples of groupware freeware which are represented cannot impress with good functionality, and yet may have “hidden” payments for necessary components, like paid server for collaboration and other important modules. Unlike this, position of software market’s big players (like groupware Google solutions) and their smaller competitors is much more clear and fair – you try out free trial copy during certain time, then if you like it – you pay for it and get a number of benefits, like stable updates, free consultations and qualified support.

• Specific example of commercial software for task management:

VIP Task Manager is client-server software (with groupware free trial version) for professional work management, which enables all team members to share common database of tasks and switch between different viewing modes in order to plan, assign, schedule, overview, control and report tasks. In order to optimize expenses this tool was designed using groupware server open source technology (Firebird), so you need to pay only for user licenses, while getting full groupware functionality.