Groove Gears Up Virtual Office

Groove Networks will unveil this week a new release of its collaborative software, now dubbed Groove Virtual Office.

Version 3 bulks up forms and scripting capabilities and is "very specifically targeted at enabling VARs and corporate developers to build domain-specific, customer-specific applications relevant to their business practices," said Groove Chairman Ray Ozzie.

Indeed, the VAR focus is new for Groove, which has some blue-chip enterprise customers like GlaxoSmithKline and Reuters, but now is also focusing on small- and medium-size businesses.

With the enhanced tool, a solution provider can design a customer reporting process, "create the three to four forms necessary and for that a dozen views of data, by customer, by urgency, by status, and create a template out of that and distribute among different users and change the template for different roles," Ozzie said. People would only be able to see and/or edit the information suited to their roles.

In addition, the forms tool will be easy to pick up by anyone familiar with Visual Basic, JavaScript or LotusScript, Ozzie told CRN in an interview.

The user interface has been simplified to lower training costs. And file-sharing has been bolstered, Ozzie said.

Groove File Sharing "essentially projects the concept of sharing and synchronization and conversation directly into Windows Explorer so every Windows folder now has a Groove button in it and if you press it, you turn that folder into a workspace that shares that folder with other people inside or outside the company...lets you have chats and conversations privately within that folder, it projects all the platform capabilities of Groove right into the file system," Ozzie said. "It lets people share folders across all their computers, whether at home or at work and between people who are working together."

For small businesses, Groove can be used in its peer-to-peer incarnation, providing a secure infrastructure without demand for a lot of IT resources, or even a server.

The fact that Groove puts high security in an easy-to-use package is a selling point for Ray Jordan, solutions director of D2i Solutions, a U.K.-based VAR specializing in health-care and government accounts.

The combination of easy scripting and secure infrastructure is important in intercompany or interagency communications, Jordan said. "It's more and more important, particularly where you need to exploit the fact that it's secure and can authenticate the guys in your workplace."

The new Version 3 Launchpad, the starting point for all Groove tasks, also is improved and simpler to use, he said.

Peter O'Kelly, analyst with The Burton Group, agreed. "V3 is much more responsive and flexible, and the timing is good, as more organizations are starting to appreciate the fact that phone/fax/e-mail doesn't cut it for collaboration, especially for virtual team scenarios," O'Kelly said.

For more on Groove, see the company's Web site.

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