Groove Networks, saying it has addressed enterprise concerns raised during the final development of its collaboration platform, will release the first version of the product this week after three years of secretive development.
Groove 1.0, the brainchild of Lotus Notes inventor Ray Ozzie, is enterprise collaboration software that heavily incorporates peer-to-peer networking. It uses e-mail or instant messaging to initiate "invitations" to other users to join a "shared space" that runs across local PC hard drives and lets users communicate and collaborate through voice, text messages, threaded discussions, drawing and word processing tools, and file sharing.
It is also a development platform that lets users build tools and applications for the Groove platform. The company this week also released the Groove Development Kit 1.0.
While pure peer-to-peer lets client PCs talk directly to one another without a centralized server, Groove has added a server element for IT management. The Groove Network Services provide management, software distribution, security policies and component hosting. Groove hosts these servers but is expected to have an enterprise version by year-end.
Peer-to-peer networking has been hailed as a revolutionary technology, although a number of peer-to-peer companies have fallen on hard times. Analysts say this is a shakeout as users evaluate the technology for enterprise and IT needs.
Research-based pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline has committed to 10,000 Groove licenses as it cranks up early pilot testing. Bill Wood, head of collaborative computing research, says the management features are important.
"We have standard desktops and we don't let people just load anything. We want to control that," Wood says.
The server lets users dictate who gets the software and what add-on software they can download.
GlaxoSmithKline has 110,000 seats of Lotus Notes and is looking at building collaborative workspaces.
"We have lots of Notes databases, but there is still a lot of overhead in setting them up," Wood says. "Groove is very easy to get small groups started."
GlaxoSmithKline collaborates on research with bio-technology labs and universities, and wants a way for groups to quickly form, add new members and disband without a lot of IT involvement.
Raytheon is launching three Groove pilot projects this month. The company, which has 50,000 Notes seats, is exploring use beyond ad hoc meetings, according to Saul Fisher, director of strategic initiatives.
"We are looking at trying to figure out how to do some collaborative engineering," Fisher says. The pilots also will be used to validate Groove's security, which encrypts stored files and uses 192-bit encryption when transmitting data.
Fisher says the additional IT features added since Groove was launched in beta late last year were key.
"Groove has answered enough questions for me to go forward with a pilot," he says.
Groove Network Services, which are accessed with a Web browser, include features such as a centrally managed user directory and usage policies based on users, groups and domains.
It also has Relay Services, a type of store-and-forward message queue so users can work offline.
The Device Presence service tracks who is online and delivers software updates. The Component Hosting service stores software for downloading.
While Groove attempts to get traction, other peer-to-peer efforts are failing.
The most notable of those is InfraSearch, an attempt to create a peer-to-peer search engine that was backed by such big names as Marc Andreessen. It was recently bought by Sun and folded into a research project.
"Tell me what I can do with the technology is the bottom line," says Chad Rider, an analyst with Patricia Seybold Group. "There are some places where [peer-to-peer] is useful, but there is not a business around pure [peer-to-peer]."
Rider says Groove is getting attention because "there is a well-known need for collaboration in the enterprise and there are different features that match different needs."
Groove is priced at $49 per seat, with the Groove Network Services an additional $8 per user, per month.
Groove runs on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0 and 2000.
