Groove Up Close

Tired of using a bunch of different tools to collaborate over the Internet? Then you need to get in the Groove.

Groove Networks is the latest software brainchild of Notes inventor Ray Ozzie. It combines the best of Notes with the peer-to-peer flexibility pioneered by Napster. Only Groove isn't about sharing digital music files. It's about getting serious collaborative work done. It's both mundane and elegant at the same time. And it deserves serious consideration from enterprise network managers.

Over the years, I've developed my own collection of tools to get work done over the Internet. For example, I use My Yahoo to keep track of my family calendar and contacts, My Docs Online as a shared storage space for my critical documents, and AOL Instant Messenger (IM) to communicate quickly with friends and colleagues. It isn't perfect--and it's often messy--but this collection mostly does the trick. I'm sure your own customers have a similar set of tools to do their jobs remotely.

Keep in mind, these are just my own personal preferences; plenty of other companies are trying to provide pieces of this puzzle, as well. The number of office-in-a-browser Web sites is in the dozens, including TeamOn.com, FreeDesk.com and Blox.com. There's also eCal.com, which provides Web-based calendaring technology. LapLink.com does file synchronization with document repositories such as Driveway and My Docs Online. Even old-economy company Pitney Bowes utilizes isend, a secure-document delivery service.

Stop the Madness
But between remembering the various login and password requirements for each site, downloading whatever piece of client software is required for these "100-percent-browser" solutions and dealing with their various idiosyncrasies, I've had enough. The trouble is, those solutions are far too complex and fussy for the average person. And as enterprises become more distributed, they're impossible to support.

Groove changes all of this. Yes, you do need to download its client, but it's free. And once you set it up--and it doesn't take very long--you can start doing all of the tasks mentioned above (and more) with your workgroup. Groove works behind firewalls and over dial-up connections. All you need is an Internet connection and a Windows PC.

Under the Microscope
I tested the latest beta build on both Windows 98 and Windows 2000 Pentiums with at least 96 MB of RAM--you'll need at least this much memory and a 300-MHz or better Pentium if you want to see acceptable performance from Groove. And while the company says it will work over dial-up connections, I would recommend that your initial group of users make use of higher speed connections, such as ISDN, DSL or T-1.

If you understand how Napster works with music files, picture Groove doing something similar, but for all kinds of digital information. When you are connected to the Internet and have its client up and running, Groove broadcasts who you are and what you have to share with the outside world. You can set up different workspaces for different groups of people, similar to the way Notes works. Only this time the work spaces contain common elements such as Word documents and Web pages. You can start discussion threads, doodle something with your mouse on a sketchpad or jot down some thoughts in an IM session. You can even play chess or tic-tac-toe.

Groove has some impressive features, and you don't have to turn on secure or encrypted communications within your workgroup. It's always on--you don't have to do anything extra. In addition, there are no new protocols to support, port numbers to enable or any other network infrastructures. Best of all, you don't need to have--or support--a specialized Groove server, since everything is peer-to-peer. This is a boon for overworked IT managers and other support personnel. The amazing thing about Groove is that it just works, and works well.

The biggest issue with Groove is that it's new, and the number of people who are using it in any meaningful way is small. I get the feeling this is what the people who had the first telephones had to deal with. You want to be grooving with all of your frequent contacts. The days of sending e-mails back and forth, trying to collectively produce a presentation or document should be over soon, and Groove will help us get there. It works even better if an entire corporate workgroup can bring up Groove together.

Desired Features
Still, I found a few pieces missing. One is the ability to import my calendar information from Yahoo or some other online or enterprise calendar service. Another is the ability to communicate with AOL's IM users and download my buddy list into Groove. Ozzie says he is working on those and other enhancements. In addition, the use of e-mail to send out invites may not work properly if you have multiple e-mail clients on your PC and don't have them configured correctly. You also will need some patience, as synchronizing all this information can take some time, depending on the raw size of the files and the quality of your network connection.

But these are minor points. I think Groove holds a lot of promise and, indeed, just using it to communicate between my home and office machines was enough of a plus for me. If you leave files on one computer or another, forgetting to upload them before you leave for work, then you are ripe for Groove. If you are already using Notes, Groove is worth looking at because of this: Many of us have quit in frustration and bought a laptop to use at both home and work rather than try to deal with synchronizing our Notes desktop between different machines.

And if you can set up your own workgroups in Groove, you'll get immediate benefits. This software is definitely worth a careful look. It could be the most important example of peer-to-peer technology in the coming months, regardless of what happens with the Napster lawsuit.

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