November 01, 2005 To Come From Microsoft: GroovePoint? Share-roove? What? By Barbara Darrow Courtesy of Later today, Microsoft is expected to sketch in some of its long-touted software-as-a-service game plan. Most expect this to be some sort of easy to provision/deploy host-able collaboration app. Something that would give itty bitty, IT-less companies good, reliable e-mail, shared calendars and tasks, what-have-you. Whether that is the news hook or not, one question remains about the expected array of collaboration services: Will the foundation be Microsoft's own SharePoint or Groove Networks' technology? Or some conglomeration of both? Microsoft bought the remainder of and its technology last year and has made general statements about Groove Virtual Office being incorporated into the Microsoft Office lineup, but not much beyond that. There are many questions surrounding SharePoint's future. Full Sharepoint capabilities are now delivered via SharePoint Portal Server, which sells briskly and contributes to the bottom line. A more limited set shows up in Windows SharePoint Services which is widely distributed via the operating system but from which the company does not derive additional dollars. The company has said that more of SharePoint's foundation, including upcoming workflow services, will pervade still other products and services. But will that future "Sharepointy-ness" incorporate Groove technology? Given that collaboration is a key to a host of future services, and given that Groove founder Ray Ozzie is driving the software as a service push, one could hazard a pretty good guess. E-mail This Story Print This Story Get the latest Messaging news, product info, and trends every week.			Mirapoint Unveils E-mail Archiving Appliance Content Management Made Easy With Xerox USA.NET Launches Encrypted E-mail Service Sherpa Upgrades Discovery Attender Zantaz Integrates Mailbox Management And Hosted Storage Genesys Offers Emergency Conferencing Service     Messaging Pipeline's Main RSS Feed     Messaging Pipeline's Blog RSS Feed Editorial and vendor perspectives The Six Flavors Of Windows Vista Microsoft plans to release a full six-pack of Vista versions, one for every taste. Which Vista will be right for you? Hope is Not Enough When It Comes To Compliance Three Ways To Authenticate E-Mail And Stop Spam Wikis In The Workplace Review: Google Desktop 3 Vendors are now talking about how collaboration can be improved by integrating video with messaging applications. They're even talking about adding live TV to mobile phones. How far do you go before it becomes a bandwidth and business productivity drain? Video is a great idea     13% Video is fine but there needs to be size limits     25% It's never used for anything really productive     38% I draw the line at live TV     25% In search of messaging products? Check out our brand new Product Finder for a directory of groupware and collaboration tools, security products, archiving solutions, and more.