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Tired of using a bunch of different tools to collaborate over the Internet? Then you need to get in the Groove.
Groove Networks is the latest software brainchild of Notes inventor Ray Ozzie. It combines the best of Notes with the peer-to- peer flexibility pioneered by Napster. Only Groove isn't about sharing digital music files. It's about getting serious collaborative work done. It's both mundane and elegant at the same time. And it deserves serious consideration from enterprise network managers.
Over the years, I've developed my own collection of tools to get work done over the Internet. For example, I use My Yahoo to keep track of my family calendar and contacts, My Docs Online as a shared storage space for my critical documents, and AOL Instant Messenger (IM) to communicate quickly with friends and colleagues. It isn't perfect-and it's often messy-but this collection mostly does the trick. I'm sure your own customers have a similar set of tools to do their jobs remotely.
Keep in mind, these are just my own personal preferences; plenty of other companies are trying to provide pieces of this puzzle, as well. The number of office-in-a-browser Web sites is in the dozens, including TeamOn.com, FreeDesk.com and Blox.com. There's also eCal.com, which provides Web-based calendaring technology. LapLink.com does file synchronization with document repositories such as Driveway and My Docs Online. Even old-economy company Pitney Bowes utilizes isend, a secure-document delivery service.
Stop the Madness
But between remembering the various login and password requirements for each site, downloading whatever piece of client software is required for these "100-percent-browser" solutions and dealing with their various idiosyncrasies, I've had enough. The trouble is, those solutions are far too complex and fussy for the average person....