1) A shared web based interface, where tasks etc can be posted. Google Apps might be useful for this.
[/quote:2de4411eca]Google’s web based interface is the best web office suite I know of; plus it’s free. We used the calendaring functionality in my previous software company, worked very well. We also used the spreadsheet and word processing on occasion. Found collaboration much easier than trying to send change controlled documents around the place, or even putting the documents in a repository.
Worth noting, the google docs UI is in general a little clunkier than interacting with desktop clients. If the team was going to spend a large percent of their business time editing them, I’d probably try find another solution.
Also, if your remote team members don’t have good broadband I wouldn’t recommend it, as the google docs UI seems quite bandwidth heavy (rich web application with gwt and ajax means there’s a lot of javascript to be streamed).One other factor to consider with google docs, which may or may not be relevant here, is whether it’s secure enough, or meets confidentiality requirements (NDA diligence etc).
2) Somewhere to store shared files ( eg ZIP files containing latest prototypes, or 3D scene and texture files ). Google Apps doesn’t seem to support uploading ZIP files ( Google Pages does seem to allow for this, but it doesn’t seem to allow you to create folders, so organisation might be a problem ).
[/quote:2de4411eca]What about a hosted virtual machine (eg bytemark.co.uk) running a subversion server, accessed by developers over ssl?
Is it practical to simply store your files in a separate repository in whatever source control setup you are using?If not, what about simply having developers upload (via, for example, winscp) to web folders on a hosted virtual machine, and download via web interface (or winscp)? Have used both solutions in the past to good effect, with low maintenance; although requires a little setup time, and you have to do your own backups.
Hope this is some help, not barking up wrong tree etc…