CoOffice is a suite of software tools intended to allow real time collaborative work in Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...

 programs. At present the most notable functional tool within CoOffice is the CoWord

CoWord

CoWord is a software add-on to Microsoft Word to enable multiple users to edit the same document over the Internet with MS Word. It is a part of the CoOffice suite of collaboration tools for Microsoft Office....

 plugin that converts Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...

 into a collaborative real-time editor.

It is developed in academia by Advanced Collaborative Technologies Research Group at Nanyang Technological University

Nanyang Technological University

Nanyang Technological University is one of the two largest public universities in Singapore with the biggest campus in Singapore and the world's largest engineering college. Its lush 200-hectare Yunnan Garden campus was the Youth Olympic Village of the world's first 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in...

 in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

.