Groove Gets It On

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October 23, 2000 (9:01 AM EDT)

On Tuesday, Groove Networks will take the wraps off technology it's been working on in utmost secret for three years. But some details have started to leak out.

Groove Networks, the brainchild of Lotus Notes creator Ray Ozzie, plans to offer software -- called Groove -- that will take advantage of the Web and ubiquitous client devices and connections to ease customer support, online learning, and collaboration, sources said.

"It's an incredibly broad and deep project that includes a lot of infrastructure," said one analyst familiar with the plans, before he realized his nondisclosure agreement had not expired.

The company will offer a software client and infrastructure to help ease collaborative tasks, not only between people at different locations but between software applications from different vendors, sources said.

"Put it this way, the problem with collaboration solutions like Domino and Exchange is that they are out-of-context collaboration -- meaning that if I'm in an SAP application and need to talk to a third-party vendor about some problem with my demand forecast, right now I have to leave my application, get into my e-mail environment; but if I had something that sat lightly atop SAP, I wouldn't have to do that," said a second person briefed by Groove but, like a dozen others contacted who are close to the company or who have been briefed by it, he would not allow his name to be used.

According to documents filed by the company with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Groove Networks is working on "electronic storage of messages, data, and software via a global computer network," as well as "software used to facilitate and coordinate asynchronous interpersonal communications and collaboration among third-party software programs, computer servers/processors, and users sharing information." The filing also specifies "educational services, namely, conducting live and online seminars and training in the field for computers."

A spokesman for the Beverly, Mass., company said not to read too much into these documents, which were filed two years ago. However, several sources briefed by the company and who were read the documents, said that the snippets "give you pretty much the whole story."

The spokesman would not comment further.

Groove Networks, in its zealous quest to protect its work-in-progress from prying eyes, has probably the biggest industry secret since Transmeta, which finally took the wraps off of its energy-efficient microprocessor last January.

Like Transmeta's Linus Torvalds, Ozzie has something of a cult following among developers and corporate IT people. Even Microsoft chairman Bill Gates -- not one given to praising competitors -- once called Ozzie one of the best developers on the planet. Ozzie developed Lotus Notes in a skunkworks project for the Cambridge, Mass., company. The product later went on to save Lotus at a time when Microsoft Excel preempted Lotus 1-2-3 as the top-selling spreadsheet. Later, Microsoft launched its own anti-Notes offensive -- first with Microsoft Mail and later with Exchange Server -- an effort that took many years and several updates to become a viable competitor.

In an interview last year, Ozzie said by keeping Groove Networks private, he could work on his own timetable, unfettered by Wall Street expectations. At that time he said the use of technology to ease communication and collaboration remained his goal.

"What gets my juices going is technology in general," he said last year. "PCs are immensely powerful. Wireless, telecom are taking off. We're in the XT era in my view. The new phones have limited processing power, constrained memory, but if you go ahead five years, the wireless network will look a lot different."

When Ozzie left Lotus in the fall of 1997 for this new venture, many speculated he would reinvent Notes -- which had defined the groupware category -- for the Web. Notes was initially proprietary. Lotus has spent the last few years rewriting it to run on industry-standard Internet protocols.

But, calling the new Groove Notes for the Web would be burdening it with a heavy weight.

"This is more like Sametime or NetMeeting on steroids," said a third person familiar with the plans.

Lotus Sametime and Microsoft NetMeeting are software offerings that enable real-time meetings, application sharing, and whiteboarding on the Net.

Dan Bricklin, chief technology officer and co-founder of Trellix Networks and an old friend and former employer of Ozzie's would not talk specifics of the Groove product but said the team has gone after very tough problems and how to solve them. The resulting technology "will be of interest to many people-consumers, businesses because he addresses so many issues deeply," Bricklin said.

An analyst who has been briefed disagreed.

"What they are doing here is already addressed by existing products -- White Pine, CuseeMe, Net Meeting, instant messaging are all examples," he said.

He and others confirmed what has long been suspected -- that the technology relies heavily on peer-to-peer networking. Ozzie sparked these rumors himself by appearing on panels on the subject earlier this fall.

However, as with most peer-to-peer offerings, there will be a reliance on servers for everything from "presence information, directories -- to help people find each other, to data backup," said one analyst.

Peer-to-peer is not an absolute term -- even Napster utilitizes a server to help users find each other, he and others said.

"There is nearly always a need for an arbitrator to set up links between the nodes," the analyst said.

Judith Hurwitz, president of the Hurwitz Group, Framingham, Mass., said she has not been briefed on the project but suspects there will be interesting aspects around customer service and relationship management.

"If you can harness peer to peer and wrap business rules around it so you can provide better customer service and directly provide customers with information and knowledge based on what they ask or need, it could be powerful," Hurwitz said.

In addition, it could solve some nonglamorous but critical problem. Mundane things like payment for products and services.

"Let's say you want a book over the Web and maybe this system allows you to read the first chapter and if you like it there's a rule that says 'Yes' and it authorizes credit purchase and downloads the rest," she said.

One thing everyone agrees on: Ozzie and company have done a spectacular job maintaining the cone of silence on this project.

"Those guys at Los Alamos could learn a lot from Ray," said Don Bulens, president of Trellix and a former Lotus executive.

But the silence comes with a price. After three years in Web time, the company runs the risk of people forgetting Ozzie and his work and not caring what the company does, observers said.

"It's like Peter Frampton. Does anyone really know who he is anymore?" said Jeff Matthews, general partner at investment firm RAM Partners, Greenwich Conn.

CRN's Paula Rooney contributed to this story.