It’s all about Groove and SharePoint Workspace

“SharePoint Workspace 2010″ book is now published! (in french).
More details are available on http://www.spw2010-lelivre.fr

In the first weeks of 2010, I had the opportunity to write 2 articles focused on SharePoint Workspace.

The first one was written for the online magazine IT EXPERT. It can be read here: http://www.it-expertise.com/ite-article/280/Logiciels-BI-plates-formes/sharepoint-workspace-office2010-microsoft

The second one is published in the february edition of IT PRO Magazine. If you attend Microsoft TechDays, note that this edition will be available on both IT Media and SharePoint Workspace Community booths. More generaly, more information about IT MEDIA and IT PRO are availble here : http://www.itpro.fr

I wrote with my friend and colleague, Jean-Michel, an article (in french) focused on Collaborative IS. Published on IT-Expert Online magazine, this article provide readers with an analysis about complementarity of centralized and decentralized architectures. This analysis is illustrated by Microsoft collaborative solutions.

Microsoft France and Hommes & Process released today a white paper (in french) dedicated to crisis management and remote work. More than a new paper focused on swine flu, this document list challenges and constraints that impact enterprises, when a new crisis appear.

Remote work is presented as a part of a global answer. Several solutions are then exposed, taking into consideration existing IS, business-specific constraints… On a technology point of view, several products are mentionned: Groove, Online Services, OCS, IAG, Live Meeting, etc…

To note that this White Paper was released today during an event focused on Crisis Management at Paris.

The french version of this white paper can be downloaded here.

Microsoft published few days ago a new white paper dedicated to Groove and SharePoint integration. Of course, this paper explain how to use Groove to add Offline experience to SharePoint but also explain benefits provided by Groove to extend SharePoint beyond the Lan (ie, how to provide external users with the ability to access and contribute on Corporate content stored on SharePoint)

This white paper is downlaodable here : Extending SharePoint with Groove collaboration

As a reminder, I also wrote a paper about this topic about 18 months ago.
This paper is available here : Groove and SharePoint : Importance of a common implementation

Alistair Speirs, an Office Technology Specialist at Microsoft Australia published few days ago an article called “The Case for Groove“. In this article, he explains why Groove perfectly fits IT requirements and is a perfect solution to enable collaboration in “organisationally, geographically and chronologically dispersed teams“. 
A “must -read”!

As a sumary, Alistair also mention sectors/activities in which Groove is deployed and /or effective in the Asia Pacific : “Emergency services agencies, utilities companies, mining and resources companies, schools, small businesses, mobile sales teams… etc”.   We have quite the same analysis and results here in EMEA.

And I really enjoy his last sentence : “The great thing about Groove is that it solves problems that we never thought we’d be able to solve. That sort of magic is applicable in almost any organisation.”

I really invite you to read his article!

Mary-Jo Foley posted yesterday on the well known “All about Microsoft” ZDNet blog, an article related to Office 14 and focused on the fact that Microsoft currently do not provide a lot of official information about what this new Office version will look like…  In this article, she shortly covered several points : Office Web Application, SharePoint 14, TAP Program, Office Ribbon, etc. One of her points was related to Groove.

She wrote:

“I’ve heard from a couple of sources that SharePoint 14 will include offline access and that this access most likely will be provided via the Groove Networks technology that Microsoft acquired in 2005 when it bought Ray Ozzie’s company. Microsoft has been selling Groove and Groove Services since then, but has done little to tighten the integration between Groove and SharePoint. A recent query for survey participants by Microsoft user-research team shows that Microsoft is definitely interested in this integration”

Like Mary-Jo, I think that a lot of people are looking forward to get Microsoft official information related to Office 14

Attending TechED is a right opportunity to do a web review and list new articles published on Internet and related to Groove. Of course, most of these items will / would be covered during the session dedicated to Groove next Friday. (As a reminder, for TechED attendees : Friday14th – 9 AM – Room #131 : “How to extend and integrate Groove”)

- Matt Shanon wrote an article related to InfoPath integration with Groove : In this article, he explains all required steps to prepare an InfoPath Form to be injected in a Groove workspace:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd185656.aspx

- You use Groove Forms or InfoPath Forms. Read this article to learn how to improve Forms Performance. This article was written by Josh Goldman:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc984181.aspx

- Also, this very interesting article regarding Groove and Sharepoint integration issues:
http://blogs.technet.com/weeklygroove/archive/2008/11/10/understanding-and-troubleshooting-the-sharepoint-files-tool-in-groove-2007.aspx

- And also this video by Ian White and Mark Ryan, explaining how to use Groove to improve network security and operationnal effectiveness:
Use Groove to improve Network Security and Operationnal effectiveness 

- Finally, my colleague and friend, Jean-Michel Davault, is finalizing a book about Groove. Have a look to his blog. At this stage, the book is available in French but is currently being translated:
http://jeanmicheldavault.blogspot.com/2008/11/microsoft-office-groove-la-confiance.html

While “Office for students” operation is starting, Hommes & Process just published an article (in french) related to Groove usage in Education and Reseach sector.

Learn more there : http://weblog.hommesetprocess.com/fr/2008/10/succs-story-hom.html

In last june, I wrote a first article for IT PRO Magazine. This first one was an introduction to Groove (What Groove does, How it works…etc). 

A new article dedicated to Groove and SharePoint is now available in the October Edition. It covers both technical (how) and fonctionnal (why) aspects of integration between this 2 products