5 ms·

Groove Virtual Office

30 points by colin-de-vries 12y ago

bztzt 12y ago
Groove actually still exists, though it's gone through a bunch of branding and strategy contortions: Groove 2006 -> Microsoft Office Groove 2007 -> SharePoint Workspace 2010 -> SkyDrive Pro -> OneDrive for Business (the current product)
- to3m 12y ago
  For another view on this process, see Joel Spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html
  - bztzt 12y ago
    Live Mesh also still exists - it became the SkyDrive sync client which is now built into Windows.
    - jimbobimbo 12y ago
      It is not Mesh at all.
  - mehrdada 12y ago
    This blog entry is a bad one. Synchronization is a real problem. Dropbox and others are doing it quite well and will benefit from it. Microsoft's solution was subpar, but it is not a problem misidentification issue at all.
    - zengr 12y ago
      Cannot agree more with you on this. When I read this, Dropbox is the first thing which came to my mind. "When did the first sync web sites start coming out? 1999? There were a million versions. xdrive, mydrive, idrive, youdrive, wealldrive for ice cream. Nobody cared then and nobody cares now, because synchronizing files is just not a killer application. I'm sorry. It seems like it should be. But it's not."
asuffield 12y ago
My current employer has a bunch of sites like that as well - abandoned projects from years ago that have since been replaced by new things, but the website files are still there and the virtualhost block for it hasn't been removed. The scary part is that these sites still manage to make a few sales each year.
smegel 12y ago
To whoever changed the submission title, the whole point of this post has now been lost. Just cut it out already.
- lfuller 12y ago
  What was the original title? I really don't get it.
  - charonn0 12y ago
    "Microsoft's forgotten subdomain" or words to that effect.
- dang 12y ago
  I changed the title because it violated the HN guidelines about titles: it editorialized, it was linkbait (Microsoft's forgotten subdomain!), and it was misleading (how do we know what Microsoft forgot? how do we know there aren't many of them?). HN calls for people to make up their own minds about content. It's not for the submitter to spin "the point" for everybody. Other websites allow that; HN does not. In my view, that is one of the best decisions PG ever put into the design of this site. It's controversial only because people don't notice all the good it does, which is enormous: it's one of the biggest factors in the quality of the front page. the whole point of this post has now been lost I disagree. It doesn't take much to see that this is a legacy Microsoft website that is still up. HN's title policy does lead to hard calls sometimes, but this wasn't really one of them.
  - andybak 12y ago
    > I changed the title because it violated every HN guideline about titles: > it editorialized Only in the sense that the title was both the crucial to the content. > it was misleading I really don't understand why you think so. > and it was linkbait. Then the whole post should have deleted. Changing the title made it completely pointless. > It doesn't take much to see that this is a legacy Microsoft website that is still up. It really does. I was baffled until I read the comments. > Please don't be rude to other users on Hacker News, even if they're a moderator. I don't feel 'cut it out' could be deemed rude by any reasonable standard.

bztzt 12y ago

Groove actually still exists, though it's gone through a bunch of branding and strategy contortions: Groove 2006 -> Microsoft Office Groove 2007 -> SharePoint Workspace 2010 -> SkyDrive Pro -> OneDrive for Business (the current product)

to3m 12y ago
For another view on this process, see Joel Spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html
- bztzt 12y ago
  Live Mesh also still exists - it became the SkyDrive sync client which is now built into Windows.
  - jimbobimbo 12y ago
    It is not Mesh at all.
- mehrdada 12y ago
  This blog entry is a bad one. Synchronization is a real problem. Dropbox and others are doing it quite well and will benefit from it. Microsoft's solution was subpar, but it is not a problem misidentification issue at all.
  - zengr 12y ago
    Cannot agree more with you on this. When I read this, Dropbox is the first thing which came to my mind. "When did the first sync web sites start coming out? 1999? There were a million versions. xdrive, mydrive, idrive, youdrive, wealldrive for ice cream. Nobody cared then and nobody cares now, because synchronizing files is just not a killer application. I'm sorry. It seems like it should be. But it's not."

asuffield 12y ago

My current employer has a bunch of sites like that as well - abandoned projects from years ago that have since been replaced by new things, but the website files are still there and the virtualhost block for it hasn't been removed. The scary part is that these sites still manage to make a few sales each year.

smegel 12y ago

To whoever changed the submission title, the whole point of this post has now been lost. Just cut it out already.

lfuller 12y ago
What was the original title? I really don't get it.
- charonn0 12y ago
  "Microsoft's forgotten subdomain" or words to that effect.
dang 12y ago
I changed the title because it violated the HN guidelines about titles: it editorialized, it was linkbait (Microsoft's forgotten subdomain!), and it was misleading (how do we know what Microsoft forgot? how do we know there aren't many of them?). HN calls for people to make up their own minds about content. It's not for the submitter to spin "the point" for everybody. Other websites allow that; HN does not. In my view, that is one of the best decisions PG ever put into the design of this site. It's controversial only because people don't notice all the good it does, which is enormous: it's one of the biggest factors in the quality of the front page. the whole point of this post has now been lost I disagree. It doesn't take much to see that this is a legacy Microsoft website that is still up. HN's title policy does lead to hard calls sometimes, but this wasn't really one of them.
- andybak 12y ago
  > I changed the title because it violated every HN guideline about titles: > it editorialized Only in the sense that the title was both the crucial to the content. > it was misleading I really don't understand why you think so. > and it was linkbait. Then the whole post should have deleted. Changing the title made it completely pointless. > It doesn't take much to see that this is a legacy Microsoft website that is still up. It really does. I was baffled until I read the comments. > Please don't be rude to other users on Hacker News, even if they're a moderator. I don't feel 'cut it out' could be deemed rude by any reasonable standard.