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Microsoft to Acquire Groove Networks

Posted by samzenpus on from the the-collective-grows dept.

namalc writes "In a huge shot across the groupware bow, Microsoft announced today that it would acquire Groove Networks, and Ray Ozzie, the founder of Groove, would become Microsoft CTO. Ray Ozzie, the creator of Lotus Notes, had positioned Groove to straddle both the IBM/Lotus and Microsoft worlds. It will be interesting to see what direction Groove takes now."

2 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Wow. The God of Notes switches sides. by ip_freely_2000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There are a TON of people using Lotus Notes. It's only recently that Exchange has exceeded Notes in number of seats used. For the developers and admins working on Notes, this is the equivalent of Linus saying "What the heck, Server 2003 ain't that bad. Let me join up."

  2. Re:Mistake: by Thanatopsis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I meet Ray at a conference about five years ago. Seems like a nice enough guy but Groove unless it sold for 1 Billion dollars was a total loss for the investors. A total of 155 Million dollars of VC went into the company. That's Right 155 MILLION. They had a FIFTH round of investment in 2003 of 38 Million. That's an insane amount of capital just to sell to MS for a few hundred million in stock. The investors would have been better off just buying MS stock. I cannot seem to find the terms of the deal online.

    --

    Thalasar