The Domino Chick

Microsoft acquires Groove

Thursday, March 10th, 2005

From CNet:

Microsoft on Thursday said it will acquire Groove Networks and make Groove's founder, Ray Ozzie, chief technology officer at the software giant.

Microsoft said it will incorporate Groove's "virtual office" collaboration software into its Office line of desktop productivity applications. Ozzie, the inventor of Lotus Notes and a collaboration guru, will report to Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect.

Microsoft was an investor in Groove, which has closely tied its collaboration software to Windows and other Microsoft products.

Wow. This is big. Not really that surprising, given how closely Groove worked with Microsoft to integrate Groove Virtual Office with SharePoint, but still... wow. Ray Ozzie brings incredible knowledge and credibility in the collaboration space to Microsoft, which is very important, because I think that collaboration is something that Microsoft just didn't "get". Their previous efforts and even the way they talked about collaboration were the way Lotus people were talking about it ten years ago. I expect we'll see big changes in that arena very quickly.

What do you think about the acquisition of Groove?

Thanks to Jake for the heads-up!

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Posted by: Kathleen McGivney at: 10:34:50 AM
Location: Detroit, MI