Wednesday 14 February 2007

Microsoft Groove

I've only just "discovered" Groove now that it's part of the Microsoft 2007 Office suite. It seems to do all you'd expect a collaborative teamworking tool would do. It lets you work within a virtual office whether online or offline and independent of any network or server. You can share project folders and files, calendars, tools and data of all sorts and keep in touch through synchronous chat and asynchronous discussions. I'm not yet clued up on Sharepoint and I've only flirted with Infopath which apparently came from the same stable as Groove. I suppose Lotus Notes users will find all this to be very much yesterday's news, but for a non-techie like me it is good to be able to master and control a system like this without a significant learning curve.

For remote workgroups such as the Committee of the eLearning Network, and for projects teams working on Optimum Learning assignments, it could well be the solution to a number of problems and above all reduce a dangerous over-reliance upon email.

Oh dear, am I becoming a microsoftophile?

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