. Developing proprietary CSCW applications is prohibitively expensive. Despite a decade of research into CSCW, there is no framework for embedding CSCW applications. For the synchronous distributed mode (same time, different location) of groupware, the framework would have to include two basic ingredients: a shared view (What You See Is What I See) and awareness. Here we propose a generic solution along the classical 3-tier architecture: (a) at the client level standard XML-enabled browsers with suitable applets; (b) in the middle an XML-based awareness server which implements the focus /nimbus model of Rodden et al.; (c) at the bottom an application/database server, which provides the structured object space in which collaboration takes place. The paper draws on examples from a running prototype. Key words. CSCW, groupware, XML, XSL, Tcl, Java, middleware, awareness, concurrency control, Web interfaces. 1 The Active Internet Current trends in e-commerce, e-banking, e-government, e-...