Microsoft to Buy Groove Networks

OK, this entry is for the computer geeks amongst us, the rest of you can talk amongst yourselves.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it was buying Groove Networks, the maker of a particularly fine piece of software for supporting team collaboration over peer-to-peer networks. Groove was set up, and continues to be run, by Ray Ozzie, the man who also invented Lotus Notes.

I’ve used Groove for a number of years, and like it a lot. Clearly, Microsoft do too. Yesterday’s announcement represents, for me, the dropping of the other shoe – I’ve been wondering for some time how Microsoft would support peer-to-peer collaboration in Longhorn, and this is very probably the answer.