Management Summary The goals of this diploma thesis are the analysis and the comparison of software products which facilitate collaboration among employees. This is done by comparing products offered by the companies Microsoft and IBM, which are considered to be the leading vendors of collaboration software. In the last few years, IBM has been developing Workplace (WP), a portal with additional collaborative components. Besides, a lot of IBM software solutions have been new positioned or renamed, such that one might have lost the overview. The goal of this diploma thesis is to examine the new developments around WP and to compare them with the contemporary solutions offered by Microsoft. Microsoft?s focus is on SharePoint Services (STS), which can act as Portal Server, Collaboration Platform or as both. In the course of the thesis, the advantages of WP appeared to lay particularly in the well-established infrastructure, supported by open standards and a common programming model (J2EE). It supports existing office products and is capable of integrating SP-Services, such that existing investments retain their value. An extensive comparison of IBM WP and MS STS has been performed. Regarding the method, requirements for teamwork have been analyzed and sorted by relevance. The most important ones have been selected, tested in both environments and rated according to relevance. In this test, MS STS was clearly outperformed by IBM Workplace. Altogether, IBM offers a more voluminous product with a number of configuration and personalization options. WP, in contrast to the compared version of MS STS, includes a web-based word processing and E-Mail environment in addition to the compatibility with the MS Office product range. Tools for real-time communication are not included with MS STS, which must be rated as major drawback. Nevertheless, both solutions offer the important basic properties of integrated desktop environments and facilitate team-oriented working.