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Buying one of Microsoft's server operating systems is expensive, and to be blunt, most small offices are fine with the file sharing and peer to peer networking that come with XP and Vista. Unfortunately, the OSs don't give you things like data sharing within Microsoft Outlook or other programs. That leaves you going online for calendaring and applications--or you can opt for a program such as Softalk Ltd.'s WorkgroupShare.

WorkgroupShare consists of an administration/server module and a client that must be installed as an Outlook add-in across all the machines on which you want to share folders, mail, notes, tasks or calendar information. It takes a few minutes with the user's guide to get up to speed, and there are some slight oddities in behavior across the different versions of Outlook. For instance, until I chose Go/Folder List and selected Shared Folders (at the recommendation of Softalk's tech support) a shared calendar wouldn't show up on the Calendar pane with Outlook 2007. Earlier versions of Outlook didn't suffer this quirk. Also, I was unable to install the client on Vista; each time I tried, the setup routine froze at about the 75% mark.

Quirks and Vista compatibility aside (the company promises version 2.3 will be Vista compatible) WorkgroupShare worked as advertised, allowing users to enter appointments, share notes and other data quite nicely. The program syncs everything within a Jet database (or MS SQL if you have it) and updates at one minute intervals, so it's not quite real time. However, if you want other users to see and appointment or note right away, you can yell across the room and have everyone use the sync option on the Tools/Share menu that appears in Outlook after you install the client.

WorkgroupShare's set licenses start at about $55 per seat, but the price drops rapidly as you add more users. Beyond ten users, you should seriously start considering setting up a server for your business. Up 'til that point, however, WorkgroupShare will fill in some of the gaps. One caveat: The company has a slicker product called Softalk Share Server which takes a different approach and offers real time syncing. It's slightly pricier, but worth looking into as well.

--Jon L. Jacobi