Friday, June 5, 2009

Bye Bye Groove, Hello SharePoint Workspaces

In the past many people have asked me what this Groove thing is about. Looks like a miniature version of SharePoint I was told by some. Others called it the Briefcase on Steroids. Most people who were implementing SharePoint though called it surperflous. And they had a point!
With a good Information Architecture and Enterprise Content Management Strategy babsed on SharePoint a tool such as Groove should not be required. Especially as it was not SharePoint compatible and mimicking a file sharing application more than a collaboration tool.
I'm not saying that Groove was a bad idea. Having a desktop tool which makes working on shared documents easier and more intuitive without the need to use a web interface for access is a great idea. That's why making Groove SharePoint savvy and making it more like a SharePoint Workspace tool makes even more sense.

Still in its infant stages, but there is now a new blog for the new project
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint_workspace_development_team/
A good place to keep tabs on to see what kind of SharePoint Integration is coming in the next version of Office and how the bridge between SharePoint ECM and productivity applications is becoming stronger and more seamless.

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