Microsoft to Acquire Groove Networks

Groove Networks ^ | 10 March 2005 | Press Release

[54-46 Was My Number]

Groove Founder Ray Ozzie Will Join Microsoft as New CTO

BEVERLY, Mass., March 10, 2005 - Microsoft Corp. announced today that it will acquire Groove Networks Inc., a leading provider of collaboration software for the "virtual office." The deal unites two top innovators of technology that help geographically distributed workgroups be as productive as those that work in a single physical location. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The addition of Groove products to the lineup of Microsoft® Office System products, servers and services builds on the capabilities of Microsoft's current collaboration products, allowing Microsoft to better meet the needs of organizations of all sizes that increasingly are creating borderless project teams comprising employees, customers, partners, suppliers, contractors and others.

"The acquisition of Groove complements Microsoft's collaboration offerings to include real-time, server-based and peer-to-peer solutions that address the ever-changing and more-complex work environment," said Jeff Raikes, group vice president of Microsoft's Information Worker Group. "Together, Microsoft and Groove will make anytime, anywhere collaboration a more natural and easy extension of how information workers coordinate their projects and document-centric work."

The acquisition also brings to Microsoft the development talent and technology leadership of top Groove executives, including founder Ray Ozzie, a creator of IBM Corp.'s Lotus Notes. Ozzie will assume the role of chief technical officer, reporting to Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, chairman and chief software architect, with responsibility for influencing corporatewide communication and collaboration offerings and associated platform infrastructure. Ozzie also will continue his work with the Groove team, which will be part of Microsoft's Information Worker Group.

"Ray and his team are true innovators. Microsoft and its customers will greatly benefit from their experience," Gates said. "After working with Ray for years as a close partner, it will be great to have him on our senior leadership team."

"We developed Groove's highly security-enhanced virtual office technology to help businesses and individuals -- wherever they are, whenever they work -- overcome the challenges presented by today's increasingly decentralized work environment," Ozzie said. "By joining forces with Microsoft, we can more effectively address the needs of information workers for collaboration solutions that 'just work' across organizational, geographic and network boundaries."

[54-46 Was My Number]

Microsoft sucks up another one. The interesting thing here is that Ray Ozzie is becoming Microsoft's CTO. Will his "outside the box" thinking become the norm at The Big Evil, or will the Big Evil corrupt him, too?

[Banjoguy]

..say goodbye to "Groove Networks, Inc".

[54-46 Was My Number]

..say goodbye to "Groove Networks, Inc".

Oh yeah---too bad, too, because the technology was very interesting. Groove went down the toilet a few years ago when they tried to use that technology to build an "enterprise solution" that no enterprise wanted.

[upchuck]

Ozzie will assume the role of chief technical officer, reporting to Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, chairman and chief software architect, with responsibility for influencing corporatewide communication and collaboration offerings and associated platform infrastructure.

Perhaps Mr. Ozzie can teach Micro$loth something about writing small, fast, efficient software using design techniques (yes, they DO exist) that reduce errors to a minimum.

[ShadowAce]

Microsoft Ping!

[54-46 Was My Number]

Perhaps Mr. Ozzie can teach Micro$loth something about writing small, fast, efficient software using design techniques (yes, they DO exist) that reduce errors to a minimum.

I don't know if Ozzie's that man: he was the one behind Lotus Notes, which was (is) large, slow, and inefficent. As were the early iterations of Groove---total memory hogs, and quite sluggish.

[DannyTN]

After acquiring Groove, they plan to acquire Swell, Funky and Gnarly.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Can Ray Ozzie fix Exchange...that's the big question. ;)

[LibFreeOrDie]

Gates will use Ozzie to kill off Lotus Notes all together.

[Peelod]

http://www.burst.com/new/newsevents/pressrelease006.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

March 10, 2005

For Further Information Contact:

Richard Lang: 707-541-3870 

Burst.com, Inc. Announcement

Santa Rosa, Calif., (March 10, 2005) – Burst.com, Inc. (OTC.BB: BRST), today makes the following announcement:

The Company has reached an agreement in principle with Microsoft Corporation to settle its current litigation;

The agreement is subject to the execution of formal documentation which the parties hope to complete within 5 business days.

A court hearing scheduled to take place today in Baltimore will not go forward. The hearing will be rescheduled only if necessary.

Burst plans to provide detailed information with respect to the settlement and other matters as soon as the settlement is completed.


About Burst.com:

Burst.com, headquartered in Santa Rosa, California, is the developer of Faster-Than-Real-Time™ and Burst-Enabled™ video and audio delivery software. Burst.com’s Burstware® provides high-quality delivery of full-motion video and CD-quality audio over IP-based networks. The company, established in 1990, has built an international patent portfolio covering bursting, video delivery scheduling and Rapid-casting. Burstware®, Faster-Than-Real-Time™ and Burst-Enabled™ are trademarks of Burst.com. More information about Burst.com is available at www.burst.com .


 

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