Microsoft Office Groove 2007

Other products by Microsoft

Product Features

• Collaboration software program helps teams work together effectively, (even if team members work for different organizations), work remotely, or work offline
• Keeps your team, tools, files, and information in one place to save time, increase productivity, and help improve and strengthen the quality of team output
• Features a results-oriented user interface that lets you manage and increase every team member's individual impact; Helps simplify collaboration, streamline business processes and content management, and improve business insight
• Gives you access to a set of next-generation Web design tools, so you can deliver improved information management and teamwork solutions through a fully-integrated set of office utilities
• Shorten review cycles with integrated alerts and contextual communication tools; publish completed documents to SharePoint document libraries with one click for workflow, storage, and retrieval

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Note: Gift-wrapping is not available for this item.
• ASIN: B000HCVR2G
• Item model number: 79T-00966
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 15, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,574 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  #15 in	Software > Business & Office > Project Management
  #32 in	Software > Business & Office > Office Suites > Office Suites for Windows
  #39 in	Software > Business & Office > Business & Office Management Software

Product Description

Amazon.com

Work dynamically with Microsoft Office Groove 2007, a collaboration software program that helps teams work together effectively, (even if team members work for different organizations), work remotely, or work offline. By keeping your team, tools, files, and information in one place, Groove 2007 saves time, increases productivity, and helps improve and strengthen the quality of team output.

Easily create a new workspace right on your computer. View larger.

Start an Office Communicator instant messaging session right from a Groove 2007 workspace. View larger.

One-click synchronization with SharePoint document libraries. View larger.

Work in your Groove workspaces even when you're offline. View larger.

Results-Oriented Interface
Groove 2007 features a results-oriented user interface that lets you manage and increase every team member's individual impact, simplify collaboration, streamline business processes and content management, and improve business insight. It also gives you access to a set of next-generation Web design tools, so you can deliver improved information management and teamwork solutions through a fully-integrated set of office utilities. It also gives you the option of working with new Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 capabilities, as well as Microsoft Office Communicator, to improve communication between members of your workgroup.

Quick and Easy Workspace Set-Up
Groove 2007 lets you easily create a new workspace right on your computer in just two clicks. Invite your colleagues and customers to join without worrying about networks or servers. Once you've established your workgroup, add tools to support your team's evolving needs: file-sharing, discussions, meetings, business forms, and more.

Stay Productive Online or Offline
All Groove workspaces, tools, and information are stored right on your computer so you can work productively anywhere you've got your laptop, whether you're connected to a network or not. Automatic synchronization keeps you and your team members up to date and you can update team information in the office, at a customer site, on the road, and from home.

Streamline Content Creation
Groove 2007 gives you the option to share, revise, and publish files all from a single workspace, so it's a snap to exchange document changes with your team members easily and efficiently. You can also use integrated alerts and contextual communication tools to shorten review cycles, or publish completed documents to SharePoint document libraries with one click for workflow, storage, and retrieval.

Out-of-the-Box Integration With Other Microsoft Programs
To help you access and share information stored in other applications, Groove 2007 lets you tap into Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007, and Microsoft Office Communicator. Further enhance team collaboration by synchronizing an SharePoint Server 2007 or SharePoint Services 3.0 document library with Groove 2007. Seamlessly collaborate on files in Groove and then publish to SharePoint Server 2007 or SharePoint Services 3.0 when you're done. You can even import your InfoPath forms into Groove, which makes it easy to collect and track structured data in your team workspace, and export or synchronize results with enterprise systems. Finally, using the 2005 or 2007 versions of Office Communicator, you can make a phone call or start an instant messaging session from a Groove workspace.

Product Description

Office Groove 2007 is a collaboration software program that helps teams work together dynamically and effectively, even if team members work for different organizations, work remotely, or work offline. Working in Groove workspaces saves time, increases productivity, and strengthens the quality of team deliverables. Office Groove 2007 is just one example of how the 2007 Microsoft Office system helps teams and organizations collaborate more effectively.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best collaboration tool I've ever used, February 5, 2007

By	T. J. Barnes (Los Gatos, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After struggling with shared folders, Intraspect, FTP and file synchronization, I've come to the conclusion that Groove is simply a better idea. It works best when you have a group of users who need to interact frequently around a set of topics. Groove workspaces make it easy to share files, to hold threaded discussions, to manage task lists and calendars, and to chat with colleagues in the same workspace.

The technology is peer-to-peer - that means there's a copy of everything on the machines of every user invited to participate in a workspace. This has many advantages - automatic backups, and the ability to work offline are two of the most important to me.

When I started working with Groove (beta), I was in the UK, with a colleague in Bangalore and one in San Jose (CA). We were all able to stay in sync without sending documents by e-mail. Groove is intelligent in that it automatically synchronizes files using an encrypted link.

Because of the peer-to-peer nature of the system, you do need to be online at the same time as your colleague in order to sync. The Groove server may eliminate this requirement - I haven't used it.

Groove appears to be secure, but I am no expert in that - Microsoft has lots of information on the subject.

Another great use for Groove is when you have multi-vendor projects - for example using an agency to do graphic design. You can use Groove to communicate securely through your firewalls. The communications are limited to the content of your Groove workspaces, so it's not intrinsically a risk.

However, from a corporate perspective, there is a risk. Groove makes it easy to invite "outsiders" to access potentially private corporate information. This means that a malicious user could transfer information to a third party in ways that may be difficult for their employer to detect. Of course there are many ways to do that, but this will probably be a concern to some IT organizations.

In summary, Groove has encouraged open and frequent communication across three continents, and has allowed effective sharing and backup of key documents without cluttering our e-mail. Five stars!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Restrictive Limitations, January 18, 2008

By	R. Huizinga (Mercer Island, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have evaluated this product as an alternative to using the free Microsoft FolderShare service for syncronizing files & folders between my computers. I have found that there are some very restrictive limitations when configuring a file sharing workspace. More specifically, a file sharing workspace is limited to 2GB or 5,000 files, whichever comes first. Once the limit is reached, the files in the workspace will no longer be synchronized.

In these days of 4GB+ flash drives, having a 2GB file sharing limit is terribly restrictive. I have stopped using MS Groove as a result and am currently looking for a better alternative to FolderShare.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than e-mail or shared folders, May 6, 2007

By	T. Callaghan ""Rebel Platypus"" (Seattle) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I live in Seattle and am working on starting a new Web-based business with a colleague in Singapore. We use Groove to share all our files as well as keep track of bugs in our prototype. While the product has a pretty rough user interface- as far as I can remember, not particularly improved over the previous, free version of Groove- it still beats using a shared folder or (shudder) e-mail as a way of keeping our work in synch. It easily saves me enough time and aggravation to be worth the price.