SB Chatterjee has Groove 3.0 running on a pocket PC

Jon Udell : The social enterprise

Group formation is not only a social process, it’s often a political one, too. During the Iraq war, there was a compelling demonstration of Groove’s unique ability to enable groups to form across political boundaries. Eric Rasmussen, a physician and naval officer, worked with the U.S. government’s CENTCOM (Central Command) in Kuwait City, Basra, and Baghdad, delivering IT support for various humanitarian efforts.

In one key information-gathering operation, he says, “We converted the paper form into a Groove form and then asked the major players (DoD [Department of Defense], State, USAID [United States Agency for International Development], several UN agencies, NGOs [non-governmental organizations], Kuwaitis, Saudis, Brits, and U.S. Civil Affairs teams) to download Groove ... and invited them into the space.”

The immediate goal was to coordinate far-forward troops and humanitarian agencies. Rasmussen rates the outcome a success. Later, he adds, “they began to talk to each other, civil to military, Kuwaiti to Brit, U.S. Army Civil Affairs to U.S. Marine Civil Affairs” — and those conversations led to the creation of the Iraqi Health Logistics Center.

Groove finally added a form of search to their product. In the latest beta release one can search in a (single) discussiontool and all of your messages using Ctrl-F.

Many people have been waiting for this for a long, long time and the lack of any search has frustrated a lot Groove users including myself over the past years. Although there is still a lot of room for improvement before Groove has proper search functionality, it's very encouraging to see that Groove has finally started to adress this !!!

Robin Good writes an extensive and praising review on Groove 3.0.

There is lots to say about this new release, and most of my news are indeed Good ones. It will take more time to get to the bottom of some more specific issues and to see how well this new release stands the many usability and production challenges I will throw at it.

For now Groove v3 passes all my tests with near maximum scores. Sincere kudos to Groove for pulling this off and for remaining the most advanced real-time and asynchronous collaboration tool available today on the market.

The new Groove v3 is a leap ahead from its predecessor both in terms of performance, UI and ease of use. If I were to rate the work done in this round by the passionate team at Groove Networks I would certainly give it an 8 1/2.

Ray points to an interesting article by David Stutz : The Natural History of Software Platforms

Runar Johrdahl also takes a look at the Groove 3.0 beta.

Stowe Boyd compares Shinkuro 2.0 to Groove 3.0 (both in beta)

It appears that the folks at Groove and Shinkuro have been converging on an amazingly similar approach to file-based collaboration, based on leveraging shared folders. However, Shinkuro supports Mac OS X and plans to support Linux in the future, while Groove has chosen to support only Windows at this time. Both have an integrated chat and instant messaging style of communication. Clearly, these are directly competitive solutions.

Steve Gillmor : Groove Reloads for Virtual Office

Couple group file sharing with v3.0's enhanced notification and alert architecture, and you make pervasive what Ozzie calls "swarming." "It's shifted so much activity of what people do into Groove," Ozzie said, "it feels more like a place [where] other people live, and you get things done more quickly."

Sean Gallagher takes a quick look at the Groove 3.0 beta

OK, I understand that Groove got some big bucks from Microsoft. But you'd think with all of the applications that run at the server level that Groove would/should integrate with that run on operating systems OTHER than Windows, and all of the industry verticals that are dependent on platforms other than Microsoft's, that by now Ray's crew would have seen the low-hanging fruit in the orchard.

Robin Good interviews Ray Ozzie. The recording of this 50 minute interview is available online both in MP3 and WMA format.

MassHighTech : Groove plays role in Iraq transition (via SB)

Groove spokesman Ryan Hoppe says the clearance allows him to disclose news that Groove closed a first-quarter deal with the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) for use of its collaboration software. The CPA is the “temporary governing body which has been designated by the United Nations as the lawful government of Iraq until such time as Iraq is politically and socially stable enough to assume its sovereignty.”

The official Groove Blog talks about using Groove on the Mac including a link to the new PopG website

Steve Gillmor interviews Ray Ozzie for Eweek : Groove's Ozzie Rides the Real-Time Wave

Government Computer News : Iraq authority relies on Groove collaboration tool

The authority began using the Groove software late last year. The effort began as a prototype with roughly 40 users. Now there are 100 users and the authority expects the user base to grow to more than 1,000 over the next few months.

Laurent Kempé : The speed even for a beta running on a virtual machine seems also to be far better.

C|Net : Life on the Edge

After billions of dollars invested in PC "productivity applications" and a marketplace dominated by Microsoft, does the world need more software for so-called knowledge workers? Ray Ozzie thinks so and, he says, macroeconomic forces are on his side.....

Slashdot : Dept. Of Homeland Security Chooses Groove, P2P

170 comments and counting....

Lenn Pryor : Now all of my Groove prayers have been answered. What rocks about 3.0? 1.) Speed - start up is fast and perf is great 2.) Ray Ozzie broke the UI curse - Finally a nice UI that makes more sense to the way we work. He is still doing penance in design heaven for Notes ;) Just kidding Ray. 3.) It is integrated with the Windows shell like it should have been from day one 4.) It just feels so much nicer, so much more mature

Pressrelease : Groove Networks Launches Next-Generation Product; Secure ''Virtual Office'' Software Addresses the Changing Nature of Work

Kolabora has a worthreading preview on the Groove 3.0 beta release (later today) A new kind of Groove

Infoworld : Groove, Kubi extend collaboration workspaces

Stowe Boyd got his hands on a beta of Groove 3.0 and writes an extensive review.

I was not really prepared to be surprised so positively by Groove 3.0, but I admit it, I was.

The real breakthrough in this product will turn out to be the integration with shared folders on the desktop, as much as the new UI pleases. The core value proposition of Groove (and its nearest competitors, like the new Shinkuro , which I haven't yet gotten to review) is real-time collaboration around shared files. Changes to shared files, forms, and other information is distributed to workspace members in what could be considered near real-time, although Groove also supports offline use and subsequent synchronization through a replication model.

Boston.com : MIT professor sees far-flung future workplace

Still, the decentralizing trend is gaining momentum, as technologies introduce efficiencies that disrupt existing business operations. "The real story is what technology-augmented decentralization is doing to business and society," said Lotus Notes creator Ray Ozzie, now the founder and chief executive of Groove Networks Inc. in Beverly. "Fundamentally, the technology is being used to reduce the cost of coordination to get a problem solved."

Groove Networks Becomes World Congress Technology Sponsor

C|Net : Groove jumps to Microsoft beat

C|Net : Legal P2P networks gaining ground

Techweb : Groove Upgrades Virtual Office Software

Internetnews.com : Groove 3.0 Targets 'Occupational Developer'

Government Computer News : Groove workspace makes room for oversight

Eweek : Groove Spreads Collaboration to Remote Users

Groove Networks Inc. is launching an upgrade to its flagship peer-to-peer collaboration platform designed to make it easier for enterprises to add a collaborative element to their business tasks. The company on Thursday will release a public beta of Groove 3.0, which has enhancements geared toward teams of workers spread out at different locations.

Phil Stanhope, author of the book: Get into the Groove, becomes the new VP of Technology at Adesso Systems. Congratulations !!!

Michael Helfrich posted part 3 of his personal story : Groove and the tactical Edge. It offers some insights of how Groove currently is being used in Iraq.

The "Mac client very important" thread on the Groove forums is still alive.

A new Groove related weblog was started by Darrell O'Donnell, CTO of Black Coral Inc.

Last week was the second partner meeting at Groove HQ. I wasn't able to be present this time and now i have to wait a bit longer before i can get my hands on a Beta version of Groove 3.0. SB Chatterjee and Richard Eckel both posted some impressions on their weblogs. I hope that all partners who weren't there will soon get a extensive report of all presentations an important issues that were discussed during these days.

The Groove Website offers more information on the upcoming release of Groove 3.0. Existing customers can also sign up for the Groove 3.0 Beta.