What About Groove?

The Groove Virtual Office client application enables groups to work on shared documents and communicate in virtual “workspaces” hosted on their PCs, without a central server. As shown here, a Groove workspace combines some features of file shares, discussion lists, Web sites, and instant messaging (IM) sessions. Groove uses Web-based security and data transmission protocols that work across most firewalls, enabling users from different organizations to share the same workspaces. Groove also supports offline access to workspaces; a user can take a copy of a workspace and make changes to it while disconnected from the network, then synchronize the changes with other users on reconnection to the network.

In late 2006 Microsoft will release an update to Groove Virtual Office, and will also begin to offer it as part of a new Enterprise Edition of the Office suite. Microsoft will also introduce Groove Server (not necessarily the final name), a gateway product that enables organizations to log, archive, and control Groove communications. The server will also enable organizations to cache Groove workspace documents, ensuring that documents are available even when PCs that are hosting them are offline.