It’s all about Groove and SharePoint Workspace

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!

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

“Office Ultimate 2007 for Student” operation allows students to get Office 2007 for 52€.The great news is that Groove is included in Office Ultimate !

But, this operation is also an opportunity to provide students with complementary resources, useful for studies.

For example, students benefit from Groove workspace templates they can reuse and adapt to fit their daily needs: project management, group management, former students network… Made of specific tools, these templates provide students with a quick start.

>> Download available shortly <<

Students can also benefit from a specific offer on the GrooveIT! products line. This range contains products that offer integration between Office components and is more precisely focused on Groove. For example, GrooveIT! for Outlook provides a link between Outlook and Groove to easily transfer emails, tasks, contacts, RSS feeds and events from Outlook to Groove workspaces. Sharing information with friends or colleagues, archiving, synchronizing several computers… there are several use cases…

With the same idea, GrooveIT! For My Documents enables documents to be stored in a Groove workspace directly from within Word, Excel or PowerPoint. It also provides search and SharePoint integration capabilities. As a summary, a full set of features to work more effectively with Office products.

>> Learn more about GrooveIT! for students operation (FR) <<

Then, because life is not only made of work, a funny application to integrate your WIFI Rabbit Nabaztag with Groove is available. Define some alerts on incoming messages or on workspaces updates, you will bo notified by your rabbit !

It’s NabazGroove !

>> Learn more about NabazGroove <<

Finally, game is also available. It’s developed using SilverLight – the new Microsoft technology to create rich and dynamic content – and integrated into Groove workspaces. Staying with Nabaztag, this interactive game can be played with several users. The goal: Align the rabbits!

It’s NabazGame !

>> Learn more and download NabazGame <<

To learn more:

- NabazGame presentation : http://blog.fbarbin.com/nabazgame

- NabazGroove presentation : http://blog.fbarbin/nabazgroove

- GrooveIT presentation: http://www.grooveit.biz

- “Office for students” operation  : Office for students (FR)

- Hommes & Process : http://www.hommesetprocess.com

- Nabaztag : http://www.nabaztag.com

Sorry, this entry is only available in french.

Sorry, this entry is only available in french.

Sorry, this entry is only available in french.

Sorry, this entry is only available in french.

Announced at the end of 2007, GrooveIT! for MyDocs is a new product in the GrooveIT! line and currently available in Beta.

Product leitmotiv is : Explore. View. Publish.

Dedicated to document integration, this new application allows users to easily find and choose documents whatever they come from and, then to publish them in Groove. Connector-based, GrooveIT! for MyDocs is currently provided with 3 source connectors – File System, SharePoint, Groove – and one target connector : Groove. (New – source and target – connectors will be added in the future)
 
For example, you will be able to use GrooveIT! for MyDocs to :

- Easily send documents from a Groove workspace to another
Example : In a project use, send documents from an internal Groove workspace (your team) to an external one (you and your client).
 
- Easily send documents from a SharePoint site to a Groove workspace.
Example : In a P2P Business use, send documents from an Intranet site (your enterprise) to an external Groove workspace (your enterprise and a partner)
 
- Connect your legacy applications or office equipments such fax or scanner to Groove
Example : Publish in a Groove workspace all scanned documents – invoices, contracts, … – related to a specific project.
 
For each connector, you can also define favorites. A quick load for often used environment !
 
To note that new elements will be shortly added to this main application to provide :
- advanced search capabilities in Groove,
- document integration with Groove from within Word, Excel and PowerPoint,
- document integration with Groove from your Windows desktop.

Beta Program is already started but feel free to register now to be involved and give a try to this new application !

Sorry, this entry is only available in french.

As already said, a lot of Groove fans are this week on the Groove booth at techED.
Na-Young Kwon is for sure one of them ! She’s a Microsoft TSP in France and focused on Office Enterprise.
 
Do not forget to visit her blog !