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January 15, 2006
More on Groove
I was intrigued by some of Groove Networks collaboration features. The client I worked with last week in Jamaica uses Outlook for email and Groove to share documents, send instant messages and have discussion threads. This is what Lotus Notes does so well and it's no surprise that Groove has some overlap in functionality given Groove was created by some ex-Lotus Notes minds, most notably Ray Ozzie.
Microsoft obviously saw potential in Groove too and bought the company back in April. Or, as one Microsoft employee told me when I asked him what became of Groove, "we ate them."
More than anything, I think Groove fills the void so many Outlook users I work with seem to deal with: sharing documents. What I typically hear from Outlook users is that they key documents are buried in individual users email folders. Everyone is keeping the same copies for fear they won't have the latest. This of course contributes to email file sizes exploding and IT people mandating quotas. With Groove, documents are managed from one central location instead of on individual PC's.
I'll be curious to see what Microsoft does with Groove. Will it stay as a stand-alone product or will its features eventually be folded into Outlook? We shall see.
Posted by Kelly at January 15, 2006 09:11 AM
Comments
Kelly, we should talk about Groove. There's lots to like. There are also several issues that I consider serious enough to give a word of caution. Always test your deployment carefully.
Hopefully, now that Microsoft's purchased Groove, we will see these issues resolved - hopefully in Office 12.
-Eric
Posted by: Eric Mack at January 17, 2006 01:49 AM
