Alexis Smirnov: Alexis Smirnov > groove

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 19:38:49 GMT

Father of Agile methods Martin Fowler has an RSS feed for updates of his site. A must-subscribe on anyone interested in pushing the envelope of enterprise software development.

Thu, 02 Jan 2003 19:15:09 GMT

Best wishes and happy New Year to all my readers, subscribers and all the people on my subscription list!

Mon, 02 Dec 2002 14:44:49 GMT

.NET Alerts

Microsoft has released a new version of the .NET Alerts SDK. .NET Alerts is a messaging and routing service that can be customized to the target customer preferences - hardware: PDA, Cell, Desktop, etc with messages: IM, EMails, etc. I have been evaluating the SQL2K File Notification Services for my server and will explore how the .NET Alerts complements it.

[SBC's Radio Weblog]

I'm hoping that SBC's will post his analysis. .NET Alerts is one of those technologies that can have lots and lots of very cool applications. It also represents yet another integration point between the OS and Groove. Current releases of Groove include its own notification technology. Replacing it with .NET Alerts could do wonders for further opening up Groove Platform to developers.

Fri, 22 Nov 2002 21:36:12 GMT

It just keeps getting better! [John Burkhardt]

John announces the release of WSDL for Groove Web Services. Groove 2.5 release must be nearing...

Wed, 13 Nov 2002 16:01:49 GMT

Q: Will .NET servers bring collaborative work functionalities going forward? What`s MS position with regard Groove Networks?

JIM ALLCHIN: Basic file serving is moving to project/team serving. STS 2.0, which is part of Windows server, will be a huge step forward for collab. In terms of RTC, we are building an RTC Service which will also run on Windows .NET Server. We are in production (with beta code) at one large customer now. Then there is how Office will evolve to encompass more of this RTC functionality. Groove is a great app. The way to think about it is that we will build a rich RTC platform (meaning APIs!) that others like Groove/Office/others can build on. [Jeroen Bekkers' Groove Weblog]

"Groove is a great app."
Here's how I would translate it: "Look at Groove as an application, not a platform. If you want to build collaborative applications - pick Windows as your platform."
If you ask Raikes (CEO of Office Corp.) the same question, my guess is, he'll characterize Groove as collaborative platform that augments Office collaborative capabilities. Groove's platform capabilities is what he highlights when he talks about it.

To me, Allchin's mindset confirms what i was saying before about Windows vs. Office vs. Groove 'coo-petition'. Groove is the fact that is under attack on both fronts and has to pick its battles wisely. The good news for Groove is the fact that next windows server release was pushed even further in the blurry future.

Sun, 03 Nov 2002 23:36:54 GMT

Groove Web Services

Jon Udell does a great analysis of upcoming Groove Web Services interface. When I met John B. (along with his colleagues Weidong and Adrian) at WS DevCon this October I was really impressed by the focus he had on shipping this thing. Later he reflected that state of mind on his weblog. He got me excited about Groove's implementation of edge web services and now more than ever I'm looking for the release later this year. It seems this release will address my single biggest criticism I voiced a few times before earlier this year.

Finally, it is not often you hear Jon call a software implementation "exceptionally elegant and productive". I can imagine how proud Groove guys must feel right now :)

Fri, 25 Oct 2002 14:32:34 GMT

It's been a couple weeks since I started getting rare random crashes of Groove Workspace on my machine. According to MoonlightGroove (moderator of Groove support forums) this is one of those problems that just would not happen in their lab.

Having shipped 8 software products in my life I can relate to the pain support and development teams experience in trying to hunt down those kinds of problems. So I'm now installing patches, running Groove in debugger, sending call stacks and memory dumps to Groove Support and waiting catch that rare crash. The point is, if you care about a product - help its developers to help you.

MoonlightGroove announced yesterday that the latest patch release 2.1b fixes some of the crashes.

As an added bonus, I found activation code for Groove Professional Edition in my in-box this morning as a birthday gift from MoonlightGroove. What a wonderful surprise!

Thu, 03 Oct 2002 14:11:21 GMT

Greg Reinbecker and Sam Gentile are Announcing Groove Experiments shared space and work.

What a great idea! As I said before, I believe that the Groove Platform holds immense promise, way beyond the Groove Workspace and tools. When fully exposed to developers, Groove Platform has the potential to dramatically increase the value of applications enabling collaboration fro within the existing applications. (I hope I get admitted by Sam and Greg)

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 13:38:41 GMT

Microsoft is preparing a version of MSN Messenger with new features that will be available exclusively to paying subscribers of the MSN 8 online service. Joe Wilcox reports on CNET.

One of the major MSN Messenger 5 features available exclusively to MSN 8 subscribers are enhanced parental controls, which can be applied to online service client and e-mail features.

MSN Messenger 5 [free XP-only version] offers a feature called "Browse the Web together" that was not activated in the beta. The client also offers access to the user's history of .Net Alerts, which serve up traffic, stock, auction and other tracking information in IM. Furthermore, the contact search appears in MSN Messenger 5 but not in Windows Messenger.

Tue, 24 Sep 2002 14:17:34 GMT

Head of Microsoft Research Rick Rashid talks about ongoing MSR projects.

"Sideshow" is the internal name for a project in which the company has developed an application that displays a series of windows with useful information on a user's desktop. Using XML and Microsoft's .Net Web services technology, Sideshow can reach out to the Web, corporate servers, or the computer's hard drive and provide quick views of data relevant to the user.

Sideshow team has published the project paper last month that described "notification and awareness platform". It looks like intelligent dashboard that apparently is being regularly used internally at Microsoft by 7000 users. Integrated in Office, this kind of tool will represent dramatic evolution of personal dashboard. I predict Office people are or will be working on productizing this. Groove team should definetely take note.

Mon, 23 Sep 2002 18:26:02 GMT

Cathleen Moore reports from IM Planet Conference. These seems to be a consensus amongst the players (Microsoft. Lotus, Groove) on the protocol.

In the end, rather than a feature/function bake-off among vendors, the real value differentiating corporate IM will be the ease with which enterprises can extend IM and presence awareness into applications and infrastructure, [Lotus'] Dies said.

Mon, 16 Sep 2002 17:39:21 GMT

Steve Gillmor and Mark Jones are interviewing Charles Fitzgerald .NET Strategy guy.

"We're certainly interested in the next generation of tools for access and collaboration and giving people tools to actually do something with that information. And today's portal model certainly falls far short of where we need to be. ... There's a broader road map where I think over the long term you're going to see a hybrid model of [collaboration] services, and we're big, big fans of peer services obviously."

Mon, 16 Sep 2002 15:54:10 GMT

Longhorn vs. Groove Platform, Next Office vs. Groove Desktop
The race is on.

Ever since I've learned about Groove I was amazed as to why such obviously useful technology has so little competition. I've explained it to myself as "Well, Ray and his team kick ass". Then, I've learned about that $51M deal and I though to myself - "Wow, Ray and his team really do kick ass! Not only they have great tech, but also Microsoft won't be killing them anytime soon. Perfect!"

Recent news about Windows group buying small P2P company didn't change my views of Groove's team of course, but comes as a sharp reminder of age-old truth about Microsoft - one should treat Microsoft's product groups as successful and highly competitive companies on their own. In order to succeed these "companies" sometimes step on each other's toes. They are opportunistic and may make business decisions that benefit their own group, but at the same time putting pressure on other groups. This rule is espetially true with cach-cows like Windows and Office.

What does this have to do with Groove? I'm guessing Office group (Jeff Raikes & Co.) was the primary proponent of Groove/Microsoft deal. They have good reasons to do so. As Office people were building their road-map, they desperately needed the technology that allowed cross-enterprise online/offline collaboration technology. I suspect they have talked to Windows group and inquired how Windows would address this requirement. At that time Windows people didn't have a good answer. By making the decision to invest in Groove, Office group got their roadmap in good shape. But it also have indirectly put the pressure on Windows group to come out with their answer as to how Windows itself would support the collaboration scenarios required by Office.

The acquisition of XDegrees by Windows' storage group illustrates that Windows group is now serious about providing cross-enterprise file sharing abilities. One can expect Longhorn to provide a lot of Groove-like technology. (One can also expect that Windows implementation will be built on GXA from the ground-up.)

What this all means for Groove? It will soon have competition - Windows. That's... serious competition. (Strictly speaking, Groove's basic productivity tools like calendar, project management kind-of competes with Office, but Groove's integration with Office will likely render those tools irrelevant for Office users). The good news is Longhorn is far away, so Groove still has time to mature its platform and get good client base.

The other good news is, Windows isn't after everything that Groove stands for. Groove has three crown jewels in its crown: Moving data cross-enterprise. Working online/offline transparently. Lastly, enabling collaboration features deep inside desktop applications. Windows Inc. wants the first two. The last one is still undisputed and has to be protected at all costs. So in order to sustain the business over the long term, Groove has to excel in enabling collaboration of desktop applications well beyond file sharing, well beyound Groove Desktop. This is Groove's chance to keep being one step ahead of its competitors.

Thu, 12 Sep 2002 21:00:20 GMT

Lee Finck is ready to give up on IM. He has all the right to. To me and to many other people passionate about software, it is painful to see the lack of technological progress in IM space. It is painful to see so many souls locked up in Socialist Republic of AOL behind the Iron Curtain of proprietary protocols.

That said, I don't believe that the absence of open protocol is the primary reason why there's no IM-based killer app yet, apart plain-text IM itself. Declaring that IM is in dead-end because of absence of interoperability is like saying that software is in dead-end because we have several OS on the market!

First off, the protocol issue is not unsurmountable. Look no further than Trillian for proof. If Trillian managed to unify access to all popular IM platforms, why others can't? Secondly, if someone has a great idea on how to use IM to solve a real problem, why wait for everyone to be on the same network? Why not target one single IM platform? MSN Messenger is open enough. Yes, IM interoperability will help successful application more successful. But it will not turn mediocre software into a overnight hit. Groove is of course a good example of a successful application that will greatly benefit from unified IM. But inversely, if Groove fails, no one can blame the falure on the fact that IM world isn't unified.

It is not how AOL doesn't give a damn I'm frustrated about. It is near complete absence of commercial applications that innovate around IM to solve real problems that I'm puzzled about. Maybe I'm just too impatient...

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 15:20:58 GMT

It's about time Groove has got some competition!

Matthew French reports on CADwire.net on Availl

From the first glance, it looks like Availl has solved pretty much the same problems that Groove runtime solves (security, firewall traversal, online/offline handling). In contrast with Groove Availl seems to be only focusing on selling the 'briefcase' solution - file sharing and synchronization. Compared to Groove, Availl's file sharing product looks extremely simple to setup and way more transparent - no shared spaces, no UI.

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 15:20:49 GMT

Joel Spolsky has some harsh criticism for Groove strategy. While I disagree with most points expressed in the article, I think the core message is consistent with the one expressed by me here and Philip King on Groove developer's forums. If this sounds odd, read on.

When talking about multi-layer product such as Groove, one should define the terms to avoid confusion. So first, a quick terminology intro. "Groove Runtime" defines a UI-less piece of code that offers such services like secure communication, firewall traversal, persistence model that allows efficient broadcast of data set changes, handling of online/offline contexts, etc. "Groove Transceiver" is an application that uses Groove Runtime to offer the UI for such features as shared space management, user management, instant messaging etc. "Groove Tools" are hosted inside the Transceiver and allow the user to perform a specific function inside Groove Transceiver.

Joel claims that Groove Inc. is making it hard to build applications (Tools) on Groove. I think this statement simply cannot be further from the truth. Clearly, Joel have never tried to create a Groove Tool with VS.NET Toolkit. For a young startup it is truly impressive to see how much effort was put to simply the creation of Groove tools.

Joel also claims that Groove Inc. doesn't know that Groove is a platform. I wonder why is there a developer's zone on Groove's site? Again, this argument doesn't stand basic analysis.

So do I think Joel's article is wrong? No, it simply fails to capture the real issue with Groove - there are two different views of "Groove Platform". One is being offered by Groove Inc. and another is wanted by ISVs.

Groove Inc. defines the platform as Runtime plus Transceiver. Want to build on the Groove Platform - write a Groove Tool. Most ISVs define the platform as Runtime. Period. Most of the people thinking of integrating Groove's collaboration capabilities only want the Runtime. This is why Joel's analysis of cost/benefit of integrating Groove with CityDesk is right on the money - it illustrates the Groove/ISV gap.

In Groove's defense, they do claim that the Runtime can in fact be used by ISVs in their applications (whoever there seem to be technical issues with this model in the current release). But still, the primary positioning of the platform is Runtime+Tranciever.

So, its not that Groove thinks they don't have a platform (or they're clueless) - its just that their priorities are out of sync with those of their partners. This strategy flaw can be corrected. And if enough people complain, I believe it will.