Thursday, August 03, 2006

It Just Might Work

Have you ever had a brilliant idea? An idea so brilliant it blotted out the sun, turned the world all rosy and provided its own string section (Ta Daaaaaaa)? Me neither. Well then, have you ever had an idea you didn't think was brilliant, but turned out to be? Something you jotted down, crinkled up and threw away only to open the newspaper 3 months later and find that the guy down the street who you never talk to has just been nominated for a nobel prize. Can't say that's happend to me either.

But I have had ideas I've tossed out and other people thought 'you know, might be something to that one.' That's the first test. The next test is can you actually implement it. The final test is the question: 'will anyone care?' I recently had an idea that passed at least two of the three tests. Now its up to you.

I've been writing a series on my more techie blog examining SharePoint and Groove web service implementations. Go here if you want more technical detail, or here if you want more general detail, but the gist is: SharePoint and Groove compare very well together-- except that SharePoint has a lot more tools than Groove has.

Which is perfectly natural given SharePoint's enviable marketing position compared to Groove's. However, with the release of Office 2007, that will all change as Groove is lifted out of the morass and into the Office. What will also change is the number of tools available for Groove.

Starting now.

My company has just created a SharePoint and Groove 2007 solutions center. It has a couple of useful tools to improve your Groove 2007 experience. And it will grow to include tools that make it easy to transfer data from SharePoint to Groove, and back again.

Why us? We've been with Groove since way back-- all the way back to 2001. We put our heads together and created a project management solution that took advantage of everything Groove has to offer. In fact, we became the leading tool vendor for Groove, culminating with the Groove Project Edition. It seems only natural to build on our expertise in Groove collaboration by investing in SharePoint collaboration.

As I've mentioned before, SharePoint and Groove represent different aspects of the same collaboration problem. With the tools TeamDirection will provide, the choice, and your data, will be in your hands. Sometimes you want the broadcast power of SharePoint and sometimes you want the surgical nimbleness of Groove.

We see SharePoint and Groove integration as a huge area of potential. We aim to bring you the tools to make it happen.

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