Microsoft® Word 2007 Bible

Chapter 52. Groove

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Groove versus SharePoint

• Groove basics

• Creating and deleting accounts

• Creating and deleting workspaces

• Sending workspace invitations

• Working with workspace documents

Groove is a collaborative alternative to SharePoint (discussed in the previous chapter). One is tempted to call it a poor man's SharePoint, but Microsoft would be quick to point out that SharePoint has many features that Groove doesn't have. Indeed, users of Groove Virtual Office, the precursor to Groove 2007, would eagerly point out that the new version of Groove doesn't have many features of Groove Virtual Office, either.

Neither is really to the point. From an organizational standpoint, Groove 2007, a peer-to-peer collaboration tool, is less expensive and administratively easier than buying, setting up, and maintaining a SharePoint server. From the user's standpoint—particularly non-enterprise users—Groove 2007 offers some of the advantages you get from using SharePoint at a fraction of the cost. If what you really want to do is share Word documents so users can benefit from each other's updates without having to resort to e-mail, Groove 2007 might be all you need. Similarly, if you have work, home, and notebook computers on which you need to synchronize files, Groove 2007 might be just what the doctor ordered.

In this chapter, you'll learn how to use Groove as a way to manage shared Word documents. Groove 2007 has a lot of dimensions that are beyond the scope of the Word 2007 Bible, so ...