Microsoft Buys Talko, Another Ray Ozzie Company (fortune.com)

alphadogg writes: Every decade or so Microsoft seems to feel the need to buy a Ray Ozzie company. This time it's Talko, a Boston-based startup dedicated to helping workgroups (or families or other sets of associates) collaborate using their smartphones. Terms were not disclosed, but in a blog post the company said Talko technology, at least part of it, will live on in Skype. If this rings a bell to long-timers it's because ten years ago Microsoft bought Groove Networks, Ozzie's then Boston-area startup geared for, yes, computer-assisted collaboration.

Comments

There's something about

[Anonymous Coward]

Being able to talk on stage while wearing black clothing, that makes people in Silicon Valley and Seattle want to throw serious money at you.

Re:There's something about

[turkeydance]

a turtleneck gets more money and a religion.

Traveler to go

[PopeRatzo]

So, it's like Lotus Notes for your smart phone?

Re:Traveler to go

[stooo]

Lotus Notes? eeeekkk.....

Re:Traveler to go

[Notorious G]

I worked with Lotus Notes for years and, while there are some flaws, it's clearly superior when it comes to business collaboration. The latest release, R9, is about the best email client for business there is with incredible security (there's a reason secret governments TLA's use Notes) and mature deployment mechanisms that make enterprise support easy.

People used to ridicule the UI and now the UI is essentially duplicated in the most popular software (tabs, tiling, etc). There was a time where the applications written on it were frequently poor, this was due to the macro language used looked similar to a spreadsheet so every secretary and non-technical manager thought he could code (I actually saw this more than once).

There was the complaint about a proprietary language. Notes supports Java, XML, HTML, CSS as well as the built-in languages within the product. It has been enhanced so that applications are delivered to client, browser and mobile device with little alteration required making building applications easier and faster than any other platform out there. When is comes to RAD, there is nothing faster than Notes. With its new XPages dev environment, you get all the modern advantages in a solid, easy to use, package.

People whined about how it used it's own network protocol. Yes, it did. That was because such things were not widely available when Notes came out so to allow networking there was some workaround was used. Notes supported TCPIP starting in the mid to early 1990's.

With R9, there is deep social integration, advanced mail handling that shames Outlook, calendaring that just works, and a level of flexibility that lets me work the way I work best. It's a great product. I've been stuck in Outlook/Sharepoint hell for the last year and only now realize how great Notes is.

Re:Traveler to go

[RyoShin]

The Lotus Notes comparison is apt: Ray Ozzie was heavily involved in the development of Lotus Notes, and it's where he got a lot of attention in the computing world (also how he first met up with Bill Gates, IIRC.) I actually read an article about him the other day in an issue of Wired... from 2008 (I hate throwing away magazines until I read them). According to that, a large motivating goal of his was to recreate a network he worked with in college; collaboration stuff we take for granted now, but that was revolutionary at the time, called PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations). E-mail, online testing, graphics, IM, even multiplayer games.

Microsoft acquired Groove Networks largely to acquire Ozzie, according to Wired. The article painted him as potentially leading huge things in Microsoft's then-new Azure, using cloud computing to do the collaboration, although he also managed quite differently than Microsoft's usual workflow. I guess it never took off, and he left to make another start up, and now Microsoft is "hiring him back".

RIP Groove

[JBMcB]

Groove was sweet. Basically a private dropbox/cloud sync app, but you could tweak it to do other stuff as well. Microsoft bought it, killed off most of the cool stuff, then bolted the rest onto SharePoint.

They could have made it a totally kickass, lightweight private cloud sync platform. Instead, we have SharePoint. Ugh.

I am building a collaborative network

[Anonymous Coward]

that allows people to collaborate when taking a piss. can I has buy out ?

Re:I am building a collaborative network

[FatdogHaiku]

that allows people to collaborate when taking a piss. can I has buy out ?

Careful!
You know how the*IAA feels about unauthorized streaming...

Microsoft desperate to get into mobile business

[nickweller]

Microsoft is desperate to get into the mobile phone business ..