Michael Sampson's analysis of the Microsoft-Groove acquisition.

Scott Rosenberg thinks it's a pretty big deal

It's a smart move for Bill Gates and company -- an indication that they remain absolutely determined not to fall behind the competition, and a sign that Microsoft intends to push the boundaries of collaborative software's capabilities. It will be interesting to see where they take Groove: Let's face it, Windows and Office are both pretty creaky for users who want to share and coordinate work nimbly and quickly. Gee, maybe information technology does still matter, sometimes.

Slashdot : Microsoft to acquire Groove Networks

Not completely unexpected but still major news for all Grooveusers and developers: Microsoft buys Groove

Hoping to boost its collaboration software strategy, Microsoft on Thursday announced its intention to acquire Groove Networks, naming Groove founder Ray Ozzie as the company's CTO.

The deal calls for Microsoft to add Groove's products into Microsoft's Office System lineup of products and services, along with bringing over Groove's core development team. Ozzie, the creator of Lotus Notes, will report directly to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

Once the deal is approved, Groove will become part of Microsoft's Information Worker Business unit, and will continue to be based out of its Massachusetts headquarters. Company officials declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal. infoworld

JiRong's weblog is the first to bring the news of the collaboration between Suite75 and Zalba. Over the past few months we've been working with JiRong and the rest of the Zalba team and the first fruit of this collaboration is the release of the CADViewer for Groove 3.0. In time we will update more of our older Groovetools for GVO and will start the developments of some useful new ones. I'm looking forward to it !!!

There is a Groovespace available for those who want to participate in the Groove Survey. Click here to download the invitation.

Wei Shen, a a student from Leiden University in the Netherlands, is doing a final thesis about P2P based Knowledge Management System(KMS) and is looking for Groove users to fill out a short questionnaire about their experiences with Groove. Contact her by email if you want to participate.

In a long post on the PopG weblog, Andy Swarbrick expresses his worries on the suspension "feature" of Groove.

Groove has a "feature" called suspension. This is supposed to be a way of managing space members who are off-line for a long time. Nice idea, but frankly the function simply does not work. It does not deal properly with people who are off-line a long time and definitely can destroy productivity in those who are on-line.

JiRong Zhou announced through his weblog that the script version of Avantmail for Groove is available as freeware. Avantmail is an excellent email client for Groove that is broadly used throughout the Groove community. Zalba is currently working on the .NET version of this tool.

Directions magazine : Information Patterns Ships Next-Generation Collaborative Geographic Information System for Groove Virtual Office Software.

Toucan Navigate version 2.0 includes a number of new features and enhancements including GPS broadcasting, team location reporting based on contact address information or manual entry, support for satellite imagery and enhanced map customization features. These functions supplement the already powerful co-navigation capabilities, decentralized data editing and bi-directional linking of map items to other data stored in forms, discussion threads, pictures or instant messages.

Congratulations to Mark and the rest of the team for this milestone !

KAGroove reports on the Grooveforums that Groove has decided to ends it's ludicrous international pricing policy.

We decided to stop charging an international price uplift for the time being primarily because of customer feedback. When we launched v3.0, we once again heard from people outside North America that they didn’t agree with this approach, especially since we currently don’t provide any localized versions, e.g., French, German or other non-English languages. Given this feedback, and our overall desire to simplify pricing, licensing, upgrades, etc., we decided to revert to a single worldwide price for each of our products.

EContent : Groove Networks Inc. has announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has signed a $4.1 million multi-year contract for Groove Virtual Office software as a component of the organization's Knowledge Management Environment, which is an element of the Corps' transition to a "learning organization."

There are some compatibility issues with Groove Virtual Office and the lastest XP servicepack SP2. Groove users are advised not to install SP2 or unistall it to have GVO function properly.

Hugh's wonderful pinboardtool seems to have dissapeared in Groove 3.0. Luckily KC Bolton has decided to preserve it.

Didn't get around to update my weblog this last month, lots of work had to be done and there was also a nice summer to enjoy with the family. It seems that I've got some catching up to do.