Alternative to Groove? 75
jpmahala asks: "We had been using Groove internally at our company for quite some time (before the Microsoft buyout), and were interested in adding more users to the program. However, after clicking on the link to the store on Groove's website, I find a message from Microsoft that the product is no longer being offered. Following the link provided by Microsoft, I find that it is bundled into the Office2007 product now and it does not seem to be offered as a standalone product. I'm sad to see that sort of thing happen, and I am unwilling to upgrade everyone to Office2007 just for the sake of Groove. Is there any viable alternative out there?"
Not a standalone product? (Score:5, Informative)
If you've got a volume licence deal with Microsoft you'd do better upgrading to 2007 though: you'll need the Enterprise edition to get Groove bundled. And it is a pretty nice upgrade.
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-Drew
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why do anything? (Score:2)
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Of course, if Groove has copy protection, that might give you some trouble. Though I suppose you can do a partial office install and only select groove...
Your best bet (Score:2)
My boss told me to look into "Microsoft groove"... (Score:2, Insightful)
He just smiled.
So I guess I'll have to look into it.
Meanwhile, perhaps TFA is familiar with rsync?
Re:My boss told me to look into "Microsoft groove" (Score:3, Informative)
In other words, if you want to keep your job, get that chip off your shoulder and start reading [microsoft.com].
And to the original poster, there is NOTHING like this in the open source environment unless someone developed an OpenOffice plugin for creating dynamic drupal sites and sharing seamlessly with a Jabber client.
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What do you think? MicroSoft isn't looking for
Unskilled users ARE their user base.
Apple is going after unskilled users with money or folks who don't want to hassle with drivers/software/etc.
Linux is great, but very specialized and lacks out-of-the-box integrated tools. Sure, you can write a script or pipe output, but that's besides the point. Most users (think Admin Assistants) want an
My boss told me to "Think of the User" (Score:1, Insightful)
And getting paid handsomely for it."
Highlighted and underlined. It's this fundamental disconnect between OSS and everyone else that keeps (and will contine to keep) OSS out of a lot of places. Just look at the list of Ask Slashdot's asking for an OSS solution to proprietary and at best the alternatives are an ill-fit, or at worst there's none at all despite years of asking. Elitism is it's own worse enemy.
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It's this fundamental disconnect between OSS and everyone else that keeps (and will contine to keep) OSS out of a lot of places.
Really, as an extensive user of OSS software, I couldn't care less whether you use it or not. In fact, if we're ever in competition with each other, I'd even prefer that you didn't. While you're dealing with licensing hassles and BSA audits, we'll just keep chuggin' away.
Just look at the list of Ask Slashdot's asking for an OSS solution to proprietary and at best the alternatives are an ill-fit, or at worst there's none at all despite years of asking. Elitism is it's own worse enemy.
Well, if you want free open-source software that is exactly like some commercial offering, you're being unrealistic. Ditto if you think that OSS means that a corps of dedicated software professionals is supposed to drop everything to focu
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Can you say, "Cognitive Dissonance"? I knew that you could...
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I missed them because they're amazingly selfish, short sighted, and yes, angry.
If you don't like OSS, don't fucking use it. We don't want you. We don't need you to bitch about it, or the people that make it. Obviously, a lot of people DO like it, or it wouldn't be (according to them) the single-biggest threat to the biggest tech company in the world.
If it doesn't do what you want it to do, then just don't use it. I mean, I don't use sendmail because it do
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Linux is great, but very specialized and lacks out-of-the-box integrated tools. Sure, you can write a script or pipe output, but that's besides the point. Most users (think Admin Assistants) want and need nice GUIs.
Lacks tools? One of the (many) reasons I switched to Linux is because I use a broad range of software and there's no way I could have afforded to duplicate under Windows what comes "out of the box" with any standard Linux distro. No crippleware, either.
And yes, you'll be surprised to learn that Linux has had pretty GUIs for quite some time now (as long as I can remember, anyway). I'd suggest that you update your FUD, but then it might lose its potency, no?
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I saw a presentation on Groove a few months ago, and this is actually what I didn't like about it. What's with companies trying to reinvent the wheel? They're never going to build their own chat, messaging, etc tools that are as good as the standalone products. Why don't they focus on making the unique aspects of their product strong?
I did think the P2P file replication thing was a cool idea, although I can't see the company
Groove 2007 is your upgrade path... sorta (Score:5, Informative)
Your upgrade path is Groove 2007-- as a previous poster noted, there is a stand-alone version.
A couple of HUGE BIG ENORMOUS caveats:
1. If you migrate your existing Groove account over to Groove 2007, it will completely disable your Groove 3.x account. You _CAN_ get it back by re-activating (like you did when you FIRST got Groove), but then that deactivates your Groove 2007!
There is ABSOLUTELY no way to have a single Groove account coexist in 3.x and 2007.
2. I am absolutely unsure about the way that Groove 2007 is licensed w.r.t. the way it was in Groove 3.x days. In 3.x, your license was for YOU-- you could install it on multiple machines, provided that they were all logged in as you. So, for example, my coworker would have Groove installed on his home machine and his work machine, and they were set up to share folders, etc. That was part of the point.
In Groove 2007, I believe that you have to buy a copy for each computer, and at $250 a pop, that's not cheap!
3. Groove 2007 DOES appear to be able to participate in Groove 3.x, unlike some other reports I've read. (it worked for me).
However, Groove 2007 is unable to CREATE a 3.x workspace, so your new Groove 2007 users will not be able to make workspaces that your Groove 3.x users can access. They would have to ask a 3.x user to create a workspace for them.
4. (this is the deal killer for us) Groove 2007 is completely unable to use TeamDirection Project-- the tool that was bundled with Groove 3.0 Professional.
This is a travesty. We have a LOT invested in TD Project. I'm sure a lot of people do. Microsoft can say all they want about how the upgrade path for that is Microsoft Project Server, but that's complete shit.
Oh, and btw-- yes, there is TeamDirection Project 2007 for Groove. HOWEVER, it is NOT implemented as a workspace tool-- it is a SEPARATE tool that cannot integrate in any way with Groove 3.x.
5. Lastly, note that the links are gone to install TD Project if you don't already have it. There's a way to do it, but it's a big pain in the ass. More shit.
I guess that's enough bitching for now.
I'm not sure what to tell you. We've essentially given up on the idea of Groove 2007. We will not be upgrading to it. We got a crazy "last time buy" of Groove, so we have a few more left, but we are looking for an alternative, too.
We MIGHT end up going with some sort of Sharepoint-based system, but I dunno.
I'm VERY interested to see other people's solutions.
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In Groove 2007, I believe that you have to buy a copy for each computer, and at $250 a pop, that's not chea
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Here's my wish... A Wikisync Virtual Machine Appliance. It doesn't exist yet, but here's how it would work.
You download a 70MB virtual machine and start it up, then onfigure it to point to a master wiki at your business. Everyone can contribute to their own local copy (offline or on), and it will sync with the master wiki when available. But, there's more, you can "share" (SMB) a local directory on your Mac/PC/Linux box to the VM and it will rsync files f
Perhaps (Score:2)
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Perhaps a bit of 're-branding' might do the trick.. hmm.. MicroSoul Groove?
or maybe... (Score:1)
Business case? (Score:1)
Re:Business case? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no intention of getting into a flame war with you, just wanted to point out that Googling for Groove returns nothing but dross, from the Microsoft site:
Ummmm, right.
I had the same problem when wanting to find out what Sharepoint actually does (eventually had to take the online test drive [microsoft.com]). Same problem with this product, why would we Google for the marketdroid speak when we have the near-unique opportunity of hearing it from the people who're using it?!
Honestly, brow-beating people for not searching on Google is not often helpful.
As someone who is currently looking into creating an ODF Document Portal [slashdot.org] I would be very interested in hearing about the features of Groove that real users find useful.
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God, what a dickish response. What did I do to deserve that?
I know plenty about Ozzie, I know how to Google (you sanctimonious prick), I've sat through marketing presentations on Groove, I've read about it, I'm even about to load it on my machine in a few weeks. I've also just completed a day-long "product roadmap" (supposedly a 2- to 3-year forward view) with our Microsoft account reps and had to castigate them for not mentioning Groove once the entire day until I asked them about it.
I'm interested in
Oooh, Geek fight! (Score:3, Funny)
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Building an Emergency Operations Center on Groove and SharePoint [microsoft.com]
Groove {is} used by legions of organizations from GlaxoSmithKline to the U.S. Army. Being able to edit documents and then return them to a shared folder in one go is great. So is the fact that what you have on your computer is synchronized with other team members in real-time so
They suck (Score:2, Interesting)
I personally contacted our Microsoft representative and explained him very carefully why I think he sucks/they suck. Taking over Groove and consequently destroying it while integrating it with Office
Collanos (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, you may want to try Collanos [collanos.com]. Maybe not an exact replacement, but still a nice P2P collaboration package.
+ it even runs on Linux
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(even if you replace office with OpenOffice)
Same is valid for MS Office/Live Communicator - the opensource alternatives lack many of the functions.
Shameless self-promotion (Score:5, Informative)
We have: a very clear, simple interface; zero sensitive data exposure on server (we have a reseller who will host for you, if need be, and won't be able to see your data); support for very large files; secure chat; optional account/password recovery; file-type-agnostic document handling; auto-delta-versioning; etcetera. Check out the site and email us if you'd like a demo (we can host it for you, or you can host it yourself).
Why is it... (Score:2)
This is /. not CNet (Score:2)
Because this is /. not CNet.
Besides, do you imagine the "Editors" would get descriptions even somewhat correct? They regularly mangle submissions, add inflammatory/incorrect commentary, and/or (re)post old, absurd, or widely discredited material.
Again, this is /. not CNet.
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I can't for the life of me figure out what "./" stands for. Sheesh.
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Beat and Jive are good substitutes imho. (Score:2)
I'm groovy and haven't found an alternative yet (Score:5, Informative)
Currently, the biggest competitor (if you can call it that) is simply email, because of its ubiquity. Try to convince anyone to give up their email for a month and see what happens. Fortunately, I tested this scenario in Groove a few years ago, and it was a dream come true! No spam. No irrelevant messages (because it is intentionally challenging to use it as a simple email alternative). Just work. And only with people I chose to work with. It was rather Feng Shui. Everything was simple. All files were in one place. Nobody ever asks "did you get that file I sent?" or "where's the latest forecast?" - it's all just there on your system. Everything was secure. Peace of mind. Never had to set it up - it just worked on installation. But now that I'm in a different job and have to work with non-Groovy people, I'm stuck working in the archaic email days once again...:( To compare, it would like people who use email today starting to handwrite letters to each other...it's that bad!
Groove provides several key components that put it ahead of any web-only technologies. The following can also be used for a business case:
1. It's a rich client in a Web 2.0 world - which means you will see people running it on an airplane (also, incidentally, where you don't see any Web apps running)
2. It runs a distributed directory, so people can collaborate across organizational boundaries without requiring IT to modify directory systems (a challenge that has been vexing the industry for at least 15 years now)
3. It navigates across firewalls to create a "live" peer-based connection between Groove users - features are presence, awareness, instant messaging, and a whole raft of collaborative tools like file sharing, calendars, discussion threads, and customizable forms.
4. Security is built-in from the ground up - every user is authenticated, which has proven to effectively limit spam, viruses and other malware, and all work is protected with FIPS-approved 192bit AES encryption on disk and over the network.
5. Trust. Only the people designated to read information you choose to share will have the keys to unlock it. That means that an errant sys admin cannot view Groove workspaces or intercept data intended for another recipient.
6. Synchronization. This actually should have been first, since at the core, Groove is a great big XML message switch. Here's where you'll find the patents. Groove has a very robust synchronization engine that ensures that all documents, files, messages, changes to a workspace, etc. are synchronized with all members, whether they are online or offline. This is a hugely complicated endeavor that the Groove team has been working on since the Lotus Notes days - and they KNOW how to do it right.
Also note that it was developed by Ray Ozzie and his team of about 125 developers over 5 years and with over 5 million lines of code. It's more like an operating system on top of Windows, with identity, authentication, storage, synchronization, security, and communications all rolled up into one app. The original intent was to make it a development platform on which people could create their own collaborative applications, like the Team Direction project and Information Patterns' geo-mapping applications.
After the MS acquisition and the decision to add it to the Office Enterprise suite as a premium business offering (since business is the real focus of the application - cross-organization,
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But how does it improve on a global filesystem like AFS (www.openafs.org)?
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Groove is definitely NOT a distributed filesystem, even if some might consider it as having those capabilities. For that purpose, I personally use http://www.foldershare.com/ [foldershare.com] just to keep large volumes of files in sync between my personal and family systems, including across firewalls.
Let me try to boil it down a bit further to illustrate. Groove is client software, much like an email client, that all
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Here's what you'd have to build:
1. Distributed directory system that allows people to authenticate each other out of band or via corporate server
LDAP? I don't know enough about state-of-the-art authentication. Maybe Open ID, especially if if works well with #9.
2. WAN P2P protocols
rsync
3. LAN P2P protocols
rsync
4. Local encrypted database
modified SQLite (although see my note for #6; maybe just encrypted flat files for iCard and iCal)
5. Communications encryption
SSL or SSH
6. Robu
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Now - link them all together, and provide a simple front-end interface that allows an average computer user to download, install, create a space and start sharing information securely, online/offline, cross-firewall, completely authenticated and encrypted everywhere - go!:)
Folks - Groove does nothing really new or that you can't get elsewhere. It's just that it encompasses the featu
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Elsewhere [slashdot.org], someone suggested using a VM to package an assortment of "Groove-like" technologies. Right now, I'm running VMware's free Virtual Server to do something similar, only I'm running "single-user" servers for Gallery and WordPress. It's a great way to encapsulate web services, especially since it side
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Alternative to Groove (Score:2, Informative)
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1. Information on disk was not encrypted - is this planned?
2. I could not tell if the information was encrypted over the wire. Again, planned?
3. Where is the data stored? Clients only, or is it ever on a server unencrypted?
4. Are users authenticated in any way so I can p
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Collaber (Score:1)
All the concepts of Groove are same with the Collaber. Workspace,Tools, Accounts, Contacts, Messages etc.
The main advantages of collaber is its open architecture. Unlike Groove 2007 you can develop you own tool
Groove (Score:1)