Groove Upgrades Virtual Office Software

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March 11, 2004 (10:28 AM EST)

Groove Networks on Thursday unveiled the newest version of its virtual office software, which it will make available in beta form to existing customers on Monday.

Groove 3.0, which like its predecessor v. 2.5, targets teams needing peer-to-peer collaborative workspaces to tie together employees, will ship in final form in the third quarter, during "the summer time frame," according to company officials.

For the moment, the beta, which Groove calls a "public beta," but is more like "semi-private," is available to current 2.x customers for download from the firm's Web site. Others who want to check out the beta must first purchase the current edition, the company said.

The upgrade features a host of new features, chief among them a forms designer that non-technical types, someone comfortable with writing macros in other programs, for instance, can use to create on-the-fly business process forms, said Andrew Mahon, the company's director of marketing.

The forms tool supports JavaScript and VBScript, said Mahon, and more advanced developers can use a new developers Web services API to connect existing enterprise data with Groove.

Other new features and enhancements include a refresh of the Groove user interface -- the new LaunchPad, which closely mimics the look of an instant messenger client, such as AIM -- now allows better organization of workspaces and is context sensitive. When another member of a workspace team is online, for instance, that workspace rolls to the top of the list, said Mahon.

Team Filing Sharing is another new tool heavily touted by Groove. Windows Explorer, the file management tool included with the OS, can be easily turned into a Groove workspace for sharing and synchronizing files with other users.

"We're pretty bullish on this," said Mahon. "It makes it brain-dead simple for users to share files."

Groove also outlined its new Enterprise Management Server, in-house software that includes native support for an organization's existing Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for identity authentication, a new centralized auditing capability that lets IT organizations track actions and data within Groove workspaces, improved directory integration, and more granular administrator and security capabilities.

Its existing server-based products, which include Enterprise Relay Server -- designed to ensure that Groove users can connect through firewalls -- and Enterprise Integration Server, which links Groove workspaces with other applications' back-end data, have also been beefed up. The latter, for instance now supports.Net and Web services APIs, as well as Microsoft's newest server software, Windows Server 2003.

"I like what I see in version 3.0," said Peter O'Kelly, senior analyst withresearch firm Burton Group.

"There are some pretty interesting shifts in the marketplace, a lot of convergence defining workspaces for collaboration, and channels, such as e-mail and IM, for communications," said O'Kelly. "One advantage that Groove has is that it's fundamentally centered around workspaces, unlike competitors in collaboration like Microsoft or Lotus.

"I do see this pattern where a number of vendors are moving in the same direction [as Groove]," O'Kelly went on, but he believes Groove is ahead of the game for now. "That's one of the challenges Groove faces; the onus is on them to stay ahead. And I think they are."

But while the feature list for v. 3.0 is long, it will come at a price. Groove will increase prices as of July 1 by 20 percent for all but its entry-level version, and increase prices for its hosted Relay and Management services by 10 percent.

The new prices boost the cost of Groove Profession Edition from $149 to $179, while the top-end Project Edition will climb from $199 to $229.

Groove 3.0 will run on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.