New Tool From Lotus Notes Creator

2000/10/24 - Today, three years after leaving I.B.M., the designer of the
Lotus Notes program will introduce his latest effort: a software tool
intended to provide a wide range of new ways for workers to collaborate
over the Internet. It is, in essence, a sort of Napster for the workplace.

The developer, Ray Ozzie, became something of a legend in software circles
as an early employee of Software Arts, publisher of the pioneering
electronic spreadsheet VisiCalc, and for his later work at Lotus
Development, where he oversaw the creation of the Notes program, which has
60 million users and was a key reason for I.B.M.'s acquisition of Lotus.

His current venture, Groove Networks, was created in 1997 with the backing
of Mitchell D. Kapor, the founder of Lotus and now an independent investor.

Mr. Ozzie, 44, is credited with pioneering the groupware category of
software, including Notes, that permits teams of workers to share data and
communicate.

With his latest work, he said in a recent interview, he was starting a new
generation of software with the potential to transform the use of personal
computers as workplace tools.

He said he believed that his software would help expand the popular
conception of the Internet beyond e-mail and the World Wide Web.

"My goal is to bring something new to the table that will change people's
view of how the Internet might be used," he said. "I wanted to build a
better platform for direct person-to-person communication."

That task has been significantly simplified this year by the explosive
popularity of programs like Napster, which permit individual computer users
to share music stored on other users' computers.

"Ray Ozzie is Napsterizing Notes," said Michael Schrage, a groupware expert
who is co-director of the Emarkets initiative at the Media Laboratory of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr. Ozzie's software, simply called Groove, employs the same peer-to-peer
approach to permit small groups of workers to share computer data, have
voice conversations and create a shared "virtual space" without need of a
large corporate network infrastructure.

In addition, Groove promises to increase the ease with which any two people
can have private and secure conversations over the Internet.

One of the first consumer-oriented software programs to take full advantage
of the Clinton administration's decision to drop national security
restrictions on encryption technology, Mr. Ozzie's program will permit any
group of users to create a secure and private channel beyond the reach of
government monitoring like the F.B.I.'s Carnivore system.

In turning the product into a business, Mr. Ozzie will borrow from the
business model of Real Networks, which gives away a simple version of its
streaming-media software and sells a commercial version.

Groove also foresees revenue from add-on software components, developer
licenses, and a centralized server business that will help manage the flow
of information.

Mr. Ozzie's vision has managed to attract $60 million in capital for his
company, which is based in Beverly, Mass., and has 150 employees. But it
also has a formidable potential competitor: the Microsoft Corporation,
which already includes a component known as NetMeeting with its Windows
operating systems.

But Microsoft has done little to push the idea of peer-to-peer computing as
a basic computer platform strategy to date. Several analysts suggested that
one possibility would be for the giant software publisher to respond to
Groove in a manner similar to its response to Netscape Communications.

In 1995, fearing that it would be overtaken by Netscape, Microsoft
responding by building its Internet Explorer directly into the Windows
operating system.

"I think Microsoft is a potential competitor or partner depending on how it
shakes out," said Dana Gardner, research director for the messaging and
directory services program of the Aberdeen Group, a computer industry
consulting firm. "If Groove is as groovy as they say they are and does
things Microsoft can't in the right time frame, they will be able to
maintain an advantage."

Currently, Groove's advantage is that it provides a set of application
programming interfaces intended to encourage developers to build programs
based on Groove's software and network infrastructure, thereby supplanting
the role of the operating system.

That model is what attracted Jim Breyer, managing partner at Accel
Partners, the venture firm in Palo Alto, Calif., that is Groove's major
investor.

"We went into the deal realizing that it would take several years for
Groove to get deep traction" among corporate users, he said.

But he also said he believed that the company would quickly find a market
with companies like Wal- Mart, which is developing a Groove application to
permit its customers to share digital photographs.


By JOHN MARKOFF
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/24/technology/24GROO.html

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