Groove's website offers more information on the role of Groove in the Sri Lanka peace process. Also make sure you check out the new Info-Share website which has a lot of in depth information on this initiative.

The Info-Share project (www.info-share.org) is an initiative to apply information and communications technologies to advance the peace process in Sri Lanka, an island country off the southwest tip of India that has been embroiled in a civil war since 1983. In February of 2002 the government of Sri Lanka and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) agreed to a ceasefire that has held to date. Info-Share is a non-profit organization that was created in September 2003 on the notion that innovative technology can improve communication between the main stakeholders in the Sri Lankan peace process.

Virtual Methods and Information Patterns LCC combine forces. This new combination is now called InfoPatterns. They have a new website and a interesting new Groovetool : Toucan Navigate (see screenhot)

Toucan Navigate delivers maps and core GIS functionality to members of Groove shared spaces including:

-Co-browsing or the ability to have entire teams seeing the same map concurrently regardless of their physical location. Zoom changes, panning or layer visibility are propagated to all space members.

-Co-editing of map features and attributes, or the ability each member has to add, edit and delete map objects in a decentralized manner.

Pressrelease : Groove Networks Enhances Customer Service for Small Businesses & Groups Within Larger Organizations

JiRong points to Crossover Office that makes it possible to run Groove on Linux.

Wow, it has been more then a week since my last post. We had some severe problems with our server. The hardisk crashed and we nearly lost some crucial data. Luckily Tim was able to save it and now we're slowly putting back the data on the new harddisk. Please let me know if you find broken links.

Oneworld.net : Sri Lanka: As Peace Falters, Activists Turn to ICT to Build Bridges

While the future of the peace process in Sri Lanka hangs in the balance, an ambitious Information Communication Technology (ICT) initiative to network and facilitate fading communication between the major stakeholders will be launched in the capital Thursday, similar to successful projects in the Middle East. Called "Info-Share," the interactive software developed by a group of independent peace promoters, hopes to network stakeholders in the process, ensuring instant communication through online messaging or chat. Significantly, participation is purely by invitation, with each party accorded space in the software. The project's primary objectives include the installation of a collaboration and networking software and peace tools for peace stakeholders, apart from providing them technical, strategic and project management support. The pilot project which was initiated on September 1 this year, is funded by Groove Networks

Paresh Suthar is moving.

Ray Ozzie : 640k ought to be enough for anyone

One other note, while I'm rambling. I continue to hear remnants of the "thin" versus "rich" client debate, and I frankly can't understand why. It's not an absolute; there will be both. A cute phrase that I heard from someone was that it's an issue of "rich vs. reach": if you need ubiquitous reach, you will clearly always target a browser. You'll of course also do so in kiosk situations, or in the enterprise where per-seat management cost is high as compared to the business value generated by a specific class of information worker.

But let's get real: the rich are getting richer. The pendulum has swung back - and on the client side, you ain't seen nothin' yet. There are two significant factors working in favor of the future of the rich client: storage and communications.

Steve Gillmor interviews Ray Ozzie on Groove, Longhorn, Mac and more.

Generally, we sell more to line of business IT than to corporate IT because that's where there's business pain. For corporate IT, when they encounter Groove, and this peer authentication model, this is the first time they've dealt with it in their environment. And now that Longhorn has sort of come out of the closet, we can bring Longhorn into the conversation and say "See, this what you're going to be dealing with in that environment, too." It's good for both parties.

Interesting casestudy : Hewlett-Packard Saves U.S.$1.27 Million by Streamlining Online Sales Guide Production

Using Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, InfoPath 2003, Windows SharePoint Services, and Groove Workspace, HP automated the publishing of sales guides to its intranet, thereby decreasing development time and improving the quality of its guides.

Michael Herman (Founder and CTO of Groovepartner Parallelspace) has started a new weblog

Cleveland.com : File-swapping is a new trend

Many companies rent a sliver of cyberspace in which to store files, which employees can then download and use. But Parizek found this laborious and slow. Groove lets him access documents faster. He stopped renting cyberspace and now shares his files through Groove.

Peter O'Kelley and Ray Ozzie have written a whitepaper called : Back to the Future

Finally found the opportunity to update my blog again after 2 busy weeks filled with deadlines and server problems.

NetworkWorldFusion : Microsoft eyes ID management

Collaboration guru Ray Ozzie, the founder of Groove Networks and the creator of Lotus Notes, was in the audience at the Identity System presentation and came away impressed. "Today's business environment is a mesh, not a hierarchy. Asking someone in IT to grant access is clumsy," said Ozzie, whose company, Groove, has a partnership and investment relationship with Microsoft. "This puts sharing into the hands of people who control their personal information and have control over relationships." Ozzie said Microsoft's challenge is execution. "There is lots of code, lots of moving parts, but the design is solid," he said.