now we have MESH
cute - but is it an extension of the older SSE i saw at Strong Angel III last year ?
or somethign more
at the moment all i see if a file share space (maybe more to come)

SSE was something different, more like a databse in the cloud
where different aid agencies could post data they had gathered
or access data gathered by other agencies
with a neat groove like sync engine that managed field level conflicts
very necessary in a crisis where data not shared meant help not provided
and resources misplaced or worse just wasted
because demands in one place were never matched to what was available elsewhere

i guess i will remain a groove believer at least for a while as i said to Steve Ballmer at the Summit - see below for my inputs at the Q&A and later in a mail to SteveB
-----------------------------------

Good morning Mr Ballmer,

this is ashok hingorani, the MVP from India, who spoke about groove at the MVP Summit and suggested that MS explore the full possibilities of Groove rather than see it just as a client for Sharepoint. Wanted to leave maximum time for others so even skipped mentioning my name at the Summit Q&A :-)

I have worked with Groove and Ray from the day it was released and probably written more tools for Groove than most out there, including GXcel, which allows multiple users to co-edit an Excel Workbook, something not possible with any other product -using Groove as the platform to carry out cell level sync, online or offline.

To me Groove is much more than the greatest collaboration tool straight out of the box, it is also a platform for building future vertical applications that beat the pants off anything SAP, PWC and others have out there, like Point of Sales, ERP and even Financial Accounting. Even MS's own business solutions would be take on a new dimension, if powered by Groove.

Here is just one real life example :- our client (MD who never used a PC except for e-mail) now sits down to his Groove account at 11.30 each morning, to monitor the opening of his shops across India, something that Groove awareness provides automatically. At 11.45 a customer walks in and buys 20,000 worth of merchandise. The sale entry appears almost instantly at HO in Bombay, synced by Groove, which sits under the PoS application. He sees the large sale immediately, something he might not have known for weeks otherwise, and has the customer on the phone before he walks out of the store.

No expensive IT infrastructure is involved, no time consuming manual integration of data. It just happens, with a reliability that the US Army deems worthy of use on the battlefield. There are many other scenarios that i will not mention here so as to keep this note short, but can send to your people if required.

Groove is also the fastest way to get a customer up and running and hooked, with file sharing, Calendars, discussions and even simple workflow that can be easily built using Forms, as i have done. Once they have tasted the joy of collaboration they are open to the next level we offer, like Sharepoint.

I am not knocking Sharepoint, but imagine sharing 10-40 MB CAD files using even fast internet, the time it takes to download, edit, and upload, and the huge bandwidth it takes if this happens 10 times a day for multiple users in an offshore development center. So there are just some things for which Internet based solutions are not optimum, but where Groove is. As a repository for finished designs, or corporate workflow, Sharepoint certainly is wonderful, but for so much else there is nothing to beat Groove.

So to see Groove as just an offline client for Sharepoint would be a tragedy. To present it as the best Sharepoint client is to state the obvious, as there is nothing else that even remotely compares, providing the best mix of online / offline work.

I do understand there are branding issues involved, but it would be better to work around those, than simply kill Grooves unique identity and utility in so many situations that i could describe, after 7 years of getting to know every aspect of this wonderful product.

with thanks and best regards

Ashok Hingorani
Groove MVP from India.