Patent ID: 8880580

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving indications of a plurality of files; receiving indications of two or more computing devices; transmitting, to each respective computing device from the two or more computing devices, a respective software agent; receiving, from the software agents transmitted to the two or more computing devices, updates relating to a status, at the two or more computing devices, of files from the plurality of files, including an indication, from a first software agent, of a first edit to a first file from the plurality of files, and an indication, from a second software agent, of a second edit to the first file from the plurality of files; receiving a request, from the respective software agent at a first computing device from the two or more computing devices, to access a first file from the plurality of files; in response to the request from the respective software agent at the first computing device to access the first file, identifying, by a processor, based on comparing a timestamp associated with the first edit and a timestamp associated with the second edit, a preferred version of the first file stored at a second computing device from among the two or more computing devices, wherein the preferred version is a version of the first file associated with a most recent timestamp; determining that the first computing device is incapable of natively opening the first file; and instructing the respective software agent at the first computing device from the two or more computing devices to remotely control, on a different computing device from the two or more computing devices, an application for opening the first file, automatically in response to the determining that the first computing device is incapable of natively opening the first file.