John Robb : 9/4/2001; 5:03:47 AM – Gartner: Is Groove the desktop of the future? “The choice to develop the Groove client and servers using COM methodologies and the C language ties the company to Microsoft's architectural vision… Groove's technological alignment with Microsoft will allow them to extensively leverage .Net technology as it evolves… Groove has the potential to redefine many of the functions typically found in the desktop and Internet device user environments. Its APIs and underlying XML-based communication services transform this product from an application into a flexible Internet infrastructure platform. As such, Groove is precisely the type of platform that Microsoft feared Netscape would become (Groove isn't Microsoft's worst nightmare this is: a wildfire P2P next generation platform that sucks in developers!). Should Microsoft choose, it could seriously hamper Groove's growth by announcing a “peer-to-peer strategy”, making a series of modest enhancements to its existing programs, calling those it peer-to-peer “solution”, and bundling that solution at no charge in upcoming versions of its operating system.”
What is needed is a fully open alternative to Groove that operates in the consumer space. XML-RPC P2P Dynamic Desktop Websites IM = Next generation platform.