Groove Gears Up For Version 3: New Beta To Become Available Today
Slimmer, faster, more secure, the new Groove, which enters its beta stage in a few hours from now, promises a lot of great improvements to a tool that represents a point of reference among online collaboration technologies.
Groove version 3 introduces a number of innovations which should fully address some of the long-expressed end-user needs as well as major shortcomings of this pretty revolutionary tool.
Groove has set so far the pace in this industry for real-time collaboration tools offering secure shared spaces with both the complement of typical Web conferencing and asynchronous collaboration technologies.
Until now Groove has far exceeded the expectations of those working with powerful computers and high-speed Internet connections by providing an array of core functionalities and third-party add-ons unparalleled by any other tool in this industry.
Groove has also been smart and brave in its marketing efforts, building its initial user base and incentivating wide adoption through a popular, well established and sufficiently long trial (a unique in this industry: 2 full months!). Its Preview program allows new users to have enough time to get familiar with the tool, to create and manage resources through this new technology and then to become gradually addicted to its many positive benefits.
Nonetheless the above, Groove has greatly suffered in gaining a wide and broad user base by having made itself perceived as a slow, kludgy and very demanding application, usable effectively only by those having the technology and bandwidth to support it. Another major weak point for Groove has been the yet inexplicable unsatisfying VoIP integration when Groove, with the finances and technologies it commands could have provided a competitive VoIP solution over a year ago in a market where very few had yet seen a truly reliable VoIP solution. Now that VoIP has become a staple of all cutting-edge collaboration tools, Groove may even have to prove its strength with more features and improvements that compensate such a major handicap.
While I anxiously await the few hours separating me from having a Beta version 3 of Groove running on my laptop, I can share with you the good news I have already collected about this new Groove major release. Here they are:
1) The LaunchPad: while it looks like a familiar instant messaging app it is indeed a well organized Command and Communication Center which allows the Groove user to access spaces and people without having to fire-up the whole cathedral.
The Launchpad serves as a starting point for organization and easy access to all Groove workspaces and contacts, as well as a simple way to monitor both workspaces and contacts. It is divided in these main sections:
· Folders Create folders and subfolders for organizing both workspaces and contacts. Drag and drop items to any folder.
· View options Tailor how information is viewed -- in separate tabs, or in a stacked view to see all workspaces and contacts together.
· Common Tasks This pane enables quick and easy discovery of more frequently used Groove functionality. Contents are driven by user selection.
2) Great new improvements to alerts/notifications. New sounds, visual notifications and more. Groove has worked a lot on this front and the new version now provides greater range of alerts and options for the end user to choose from. New shared folders can integrate alerts so that fellow workspace team-mates get notified when you add or edit a shared document.
3) The new Forms tool: Groove has greatly enhanced its basic Form creation tool which now allows rapid application development even for the non programmer. Forms
The sweet spot for forms-based solutions comprises gathering, sharing, analyzing and integrating structured data as part of a business process. The beauty of Groove forms is that, in many cases, the business process actually can be defined and implemented by end users.
In addition to making the forms tool more feature-complete, Groove v3.0 also makes it simpler to access and customize solutions through a better set of out-of-the-box templates and samples. These templates will be accessible through the Add Tool function in a standard workspace, and once in a workspace, they can be rapidly customized to meet specific requirements on the fly. There will be a number of templates, and each will fall into one of three categories:
1. Customer/partner reference and tracking
2. Cross-organizational support and incident tracking
3. Engineering project coordination/collaboration for remote/distributed teams
The forms tool user interface has been overhauled to enhance the comfort level for both users and designers, as well as to enhance behavioural consistency with other Groove tools.
Image above: Adding a form record in user mode. Specifically, this image depicts the support for tabbed layouts. It also shows command bar access to the Save, Cancel, Reset actions, whereas previously a user has had to scroll to the bottom of a record.
Image above: Forms Designer. Notice the design object pane on the left, allowing quick access to the ability to add a field, create/modify a form or record, and write a script or macro. Also notice the design layout preview in the primary interface; it is from within this preview pane that designers control the layout (e.g., columns, order, etc.) of their form. There are many additional interface and feature improvements for users and designers, which you will discover as you begin to experiment with Groove forms v3.0.
4) Contextual collaboration at its best. Secure file synchronization at the Windows file system. You can now share folders right from within Windows Explorer and easily invite your contacts to join in the newly created workspace. Via web services Groove expose its core capabilities -- synchronization, presence/awareness, and conversation -- right at the Windows file shell. As I have been long suggesting disappearing behind a Microsoft button in one of the many Office or Windows Toolbars is probably the best and most effective way to move toward when developing real-tome, contextual collaboration tools. No need to have a whole separate apparatus to communicate and collaborate with others. Collaboration should be a direct extension of your normal workspace and tools.
5) File sharing and notifications options. One great new feature allows members of a Groove workspace to choose whether they want to between: a) "Download files manually" which means being simply notified of new files being added to the workspace without being forced to automatically download them. b) receiving only file that are smaller than a certain size established by the end user. For bigger files one would receive only a notification with the option of manually downloading the file later, c) receiving files automatically once they are added to a workspace. Also, the new Groove will only distribute to the workspace team members the bits of information changed in a file and not the whole file again.
6) Anti Virus Protection Groove now provides an additional layer of virus protection that adds up to the anti-virus protection systems that users may have already installed on their PCs. It includes:
· Interception and scanning of all files entering and exiting Groove v3.0
· Auto-detection of end-user' anti virus support for the Microsoft Antivirus API. Vendors that do support this are presently Symantec (not in the Corporate Edition), McAfee, Sophos and Trend Micro.
· Issuing of warning messages if a virus is found in a file entering Groove and automatic rejection of the file. If a virus is found in a file exiting Groove, the file will automatically be removed.
7) Performance.
According to early reports and official information to be released by Groove "performance has been dramatically improved". Significant changes were made to the user interface to increase both usability and performance. Improvements were made to many visible and non-visible aspects of the new product up to the low-level infrastructure. The areas that benefited the most from these performance improvements are:
· Starting Groove
· Creating a workspace
· Opening a workspace
· Navigating between workspaces
· Adding a new tool to a workspace
· Navigating to a tool within a workspace
Memory management and usage of network resources have also been markedly improved.
Improvements and additions to Groove Enterprise Server
8) Security
A number of new security features have been added to Groove and improving further on an already solid foundation. Among the new security features introduced:
a) PKI Integration - For enterprises with an existing public key infrastructure (PKI), the Enterprise Management Server allows the use of enterprise user certificates for identity authentication within Groove. In addition, administrators can use enterprise certificates or smart cards for protecting user accounts (as a stronger alternative to passwords). This is a tremendous step forward for Groove in leading the collaboration industry in finally giving due respect and resources to the issue of identity management and authentication. This move shows Groove to fully understand the issue and the direction we are headed to.
a) Enhanced roles-based access control - Administrators can be assigned to roles with more limited access to enable portioning of responsibility.
b) Additional security policies - Limit tool usage and set the number of permitted log-on attempts before lockout.
c) Password reset security - Enterprises will have the ability to require multiple administrators for a password reset.
9) Enterprise Auditing
Newly available to work in conjunction with the Enterprise Management Server v3.0 is a centralized auditing facility. Using policies set by the Enterprise Management Server, administrators enable the creation of local encrypted audit logs on user devices, which are automatically uploaded to the Enterprise Audit Server. These logs are then decrypted and stored on a SQL database for custom reporting. Auditable events include account events (logon/logoff, instant messages, invitations) and tool specific events (Files, Discussion, Chat, Document Review). File content changes can also be audited.
10) Extendibility Through Third-party Development Options
As I see it, this may probably be Groove's the key market development strategy that will pay the best returns in the medium to long run. Grooves development platform products aim to increase developer productivity by enabling effetive and in-demand solutions to be quickly developed and with much greater reliability than before.
The new Groove 3 development support products should appear more familiar in terms of the leveraging technologies being chosen, and more usable in the design of the APIs and development tools that are part of the Groove Development Kit (GDK).
Specifically the Groove developer will now be able to look at these possible alternative development models:
a) Groove Workspace Explorer solutions: Tools that live inside the Groove Workspace Explorer application environment/interface, and may work in conjunction with other Groove tools. Often, though not always, these solutions are horizontal in nature.
2. Groove Web services integration solutions: Solutions that make use of Groove collaboration services and/or Groove data in any non-Groove specific application environment or enterprise system/database.
3. Groove bot integration solutions: Integration solutions running on the Enterprise Integration Server that use a bot, or automated agent, to integrate data from Groove Workspace Explorer with enterprise processes and back-end systems.
Conclusions
Well, this is the summary.
If you are a registered Groove user you can sign-up to be notified for the release of this new Beta version as soon as it becomes available in a few hours.
If you are not, you can still sign-up and will be contacted by Groove if selected to participate in this Beta test program.
For all I can say now I have to say that I am positively impressed by the new grounds covered and by the many improvements to the overall usability, architecture and performance of this tool.
If I were to be asked to contribute my criticisms and advice in a few short points I would say:
1) I remain still disappointed at Groove not having addressed one of its major shortcomings as a real-time collaboration tool: VoIP. Though Groove integrates a VoIP module, its quality and performance have long left much to be desired.
2) As I hinted to Groove a year ago hooks and optional bridges to business/social networking facilities would be a perfect complement inside this technology. No-one has yet understood this potential, and those who have, have long seen the limits and superficiality generated by the likes of Ryze, Ecademy, Orkut and LinkedIn which do have the people, but have hardly any facility to allow them to collaborate (outside of sending unrequested messages to each other).
3) Publishing and syndicating content is going to be soon part of every man job on this planet. Whether she works for HP or has her own little online company. Groove, for what I know, offers no way to "publish" or hook into my preferred publishing tools.
4) As a matter of fact I may even want to have a Web-based and an RSS-based output feed of any workspace information and updates I create in Groove. This would create even more usable access routes to Groove data for my dispersed team and collaborators.
5) When I collaborate I often have to show what is going on my screen. Groove leaves me in the cold here, forcing me to use third-party solutions (is there an add-on for groove?) to do basic screen-sharing activities, which are nowadays offered within most if not all web conferencing solutions.
6) As it is largely demonstrated by advanced uses and cutting-edge collaboration tecnologies video makes a difference and, to use it, you don't need to really have tons of bandwidth. Showing other people faces and having the option to show yours as well, and at different degrees of quality, frame rate and size is something that appeals to users and that provides tangible benefits while conducting real-time collaboration sessions. When will this apply to Groove too?
Groove is, as I have said several times a unique revolutionary tool for online collaboration. Nonetheless its many handicaps and limitations, it offers and integrates an array of tools and facilities that no other competing tool can claim to have.
I am a user of Groove and I confess that for several tasks this is a tool that I would not give up.
Before I sing more about how Good this new Beta version 3 of Groove really is, let me download the new software in a few hours and in report back to you more detailed information as soon as I get to discover it.
For more information about Groove see also these other articles:
Groove 3: A Tool For Our Times - by Stowe Boyd, Corante
March 13 2004
Groove: Vision Required - Robin Good' Sharewood Tidings
July 25, 2003
Groove: Ten Good Reasons Not To Buy - Robin Good' Sharewood Tidings
July 23, 2003
Online Collaboration At Its Best: Dig Your Groove And Start Creating Your Own Virtual Real Estate Spaces - Robin Good' Sharewood Tidings
April 30, 203
Online Collaboration Templates For Groove-based Projects - Robin Good' Sharewood Tidings
March 1st, 2003
Peer To Peer Online Collaboration Killer App - Robin Good' Sharewood Tidings
October 31, 2002
Groove 2.5 Full Review (32 sections) - Robin Good's Official Guide To Web Conferencing And Live Presentation Tools
