Cost-effective collaboration
Groove Networks calls its new version Virtual Office (formerly known as Groove Workspace) a major upgrade with numerous enhancements, some particularly beneficial for small businesses, says Groove.
Virtual Office 3.0 software includes core Groove capabilities--secure data synchronization, activity awareness and contextual conversation--that let teams work together virtually, online and offline, independent of geographic or organizational boundaries, while flexibly supporting their unique work styles and requirements, claims Groove. A package of included tools enables small businesses to customize work spaces to meet their unique requirements.
Groove reports key enhancements to Virtual Office version 3.0 include:
Launchbar--to view and access Groove work spaces, contacts and activity from a single location.
Rapid applications with enhanced forms--for quick creation of business process-specific applications and connecting them to back-end databases and systems. The product comes with 10 ready-made, yet customizable forms templates to help users get started.
Microsoft Windows-integrated folder synchronization--for securely sharing files across any number of a user's own PCs, or among multiple users' PCs, even across firewall boundaries.
Expanded alerts and activity awareness--to signal when individuals come online, enter workspaces and perform important activities through visual, audible and spoken notifications.
Improved performance--to quicken the start-up time and navigation of the Groove user interface, as well as data transfer among users;
Third-party public key infrastructure (PKI) support-- to enable organizations to use their own certificate authorities for identity authentication.
Activity auditing for regulatory compliance--to centrally capture workspace activity and data on users' PCs for regulatory compliance.
Expanded Web Services API--for creating discrete applications that consume some or all Groove virtual office capabilities such as synchronization and presence awareness.
.Net API--for developing custom tools or bots that run within Groove Virtual Office, using Visual Studio.net as the integrated development environment.