Cobb: Microsoft Buys Groove

March 10, 2005

Microsoft Buys Groove

Now here's something to be interested and perhaps very skeptical about. One way or another it's a big deal. Ever competitive, MS has just stuck a sword through the gut of Chandler. In the battle for superior office collaboration, Ray Ozzie smashes Mitch Kapor to the carpet. The question is whether or not Groove will survive integration with the next version of Windows.

My prediction is that it will be stunningly complex on the back-end and fabulously friendly on the front. I say this having successfully Grooved for several months last year. Right now, the integration of Groove and Windows is flawless, down to the 200 Registry entries, and the changes to Windows Explorer. In fact, it's rather difficult to get rid of all the tentacles Groove inserts into Windows. Groove is a collaborator's dream in that it obviates the need for File Servers and Briefcases. Everything is synchronized nicely, in near real time.

I have yet to come across an implementation of Windows Active Anything that works very well across an enterprise. Groove has the best chance of anything yet. It is a secure and non-clunky way of enabling collaborative objects.

The best thing about the Groove desktop is the interface. It is good enough for people to be immediately productive. It has taken Ozzie and company several years to accomplish this, and their latest version is truly all that. I've heard somewhat stupendous things about WebDAV, but I'm not holding my breath. What Linux does on the desktop is cool, but this is the killer app.

I predict that Win32 developers will start creating sharable objects for Groove as soon as humanly possible, and that it marks a return to fat-client basics. What is Groove's competition? Web Services. I have a feeling that a lot of .Net developers are going to take it on the chin.

Groove is a big enough and killer enough app to make Windows a much more attractive proposition, and no there isn't a Mac version. I have a feeling that if it gets deep enough into the OS, it's going to be a whole new world. Groove has the capacity, in my estimation, to be for Windows what the combination of Aqua and i-apps are for Mac, with security and collaboration built in.

Posted by mbowen at March 10, 2005 08:45 PM

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Comments

Groove is a nice application. I used it for a few months as well.

Keeping multiple desk tops in synch was easy as long as at least one person kept their machine on and running Groove.

I'm using eRoom right now and it's not as nice, to me, as Groove.

But the back ends are totally different, and for integrating something in the enterprise, eRoom is more flexible.

But tying the web interface to one specific browser, sux.

Posted by: EBrown at March 11, 2005 02:38 PM

Oh, the last sentence was about eRoom being tied to Internet Explorer.

Posted by: EBrown at March 12, 2005 04:53 AM