Groove Buy for Collaboration

Document sharing and other forms of collaboration are the focus of Microsoft’s latest acquisition, Groove Networks. Groove’s primary product, the Virtual Office software, enables groups to work on shared documents and communicate in virtual “workspaces” hosted on their PCs. The acquisition delivers people and technology that could strengthen Microsoft’s collaboration products, particularly in the SharePoint line, but it also eliminates an independent software vendor that was a showcase for key Microsoft developer technologies.

What Is Groove?

Groove Virtual Office creates workspaces that combine some features of file shares, discussion lists, Web sites, and instant messaging (IM) sessions. (See the illustration “A Groove Workspace“.) Groove workspace users can post and update shared documents and data (such as schedules), see which other group members are online, and communicate by a variety of means including instant messaging and discussion lists. The goal is to bring together all of the resources for a project and give group members an online space to work on the project.