Full Circle Associates

Microsoft Buys Groove. No surprise there. The increased integration with MS Office was the writing on the wall. Tap in to the established user base is a business no brainer. But is it any service to distributed collaboration as an essential business practice? I worry.

Here is the corporate word:

Microsoft said Groove would complement SharePoint, its own collaboration program and Web portal that is designed to run over internal corporate networks and the Internet.

Microsoft said Groove would also complement Office Live Meeting, which was formerly PlaceWare's Web conferencing software.

Jeff Raikes, Microsoft's group vice president in charge of the division that includes office and other business programs, said that the "addition of Groove has us hitting the 'trifecta' of collaboration."

If those three products are the "trifecta of collaboration," I'm worried. The each fill a niche, but hardly support the kind of network centric collaboration required today.

When will Microsoft finally start "getting collaboration?" Owning the big tools does not make that happen. SharePoint, for goodness sake, is a HORRIBLE collaboration tool. It is a file sharing tool. In terms of human to human interaction it pays no attention to human social interaction issues. It is vertically designed. It is not network centric. Live Meeting is fine as a synch tool, but it has no hooks to blend asych/synch, and it is again, vertically designed. Groove is a fantastic team tool for those with the bandwidth and CPU power, and has many more network like hooks, but wil that be diminished when it becomes MicroGroove?

Why don't we see some of the innovation found in Channel 9 in Microsoft's products? Why none of the cool stuff coming out of their Social Computing Group?

There are some brilliant, talented people who know collaboration within Microsoft. Ward Cunningham comes to mind - this is the WIKI guy, who understands the power of community. Microsoft, listen to these people! Build the network view into your collaboration tools. Don't imprison us in Office metaphors. Allow us to appropriate and shape our tools to work horizontally and vertically. Make your applications breathe, not imprison.