This idea comes from an insightful article at CMSWire titled "Document Collaboration Evolves Into a Complex Powerhouse". The evolution in document collaboration has in part been driven by changes in the definition of "document" itself. A document is no longer just a MS Word, Open Office or any other file type which is normally associated with "document". Isn't an email, a tweet, a wiki, a webpage equally a document. Important corporate content is now published in any of these disparate formats. "Content" is perhaps a new and more apt title for "document".

The article discusses document collaboration in three contexts, namely "document to system" interaction (how documents interacts with systems), "document to document" interaction (how documents interact with other documents and document types) and "document to user" interaction. I will however, only focus on the third type of document collaboration, where different people come together to contribute to the content which forms part of an evolving document. Document collaboration in this context has evolved as follows:-

1) Document collaboration through emails. There was a time where document collaboration was as rudimentary as people creating a document, emailing it across to other interested parties, them making edits, mailing it back and so on. This method of document collaboration was vastly efficient as it would take multiple email threads even for simple collaboration, and there would be numerous versions of a document floating around. Ironically, a large number of companies still use this method of collaboration, because of its relative simplicity.  

2) Document management systems.  A much improved method of document collaboration was through document management systems. It was a central repository of document where contributors would access a document (a "pull" approach where everyone would access a centralized copy of the document rather than the "push" approach of email where multiple copies would be pushed out to contributors). The contributors would access and edit the document one at a time (called check in / check out), and track the evolution of a document through version control. The earlier sub type of this system was network confined systems, where only contributors within the company could access documents and make edits. The newer sub type is online document management systems where anyone with permissions and an internet connection can access documents. A large portion of companies use this method of document collaboration.

3) Real time document collaboration. The latest in document collaboration is real time document collaboration, popularized by Google Docs. Rather than making changes to documents one at a time, multiple contributors can make edits in real time, and the finalized document incorporates all these changes. Added features like real time comments and chat are also included to make real time collaboration more efficient. Although not very widely used now, this might well be the way of document collaboration in the future. 

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