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Ten years after unleashing Lotus Notes on a befuddled world, superprogrammer Ray Ozzie has come up with a better idea: software that lets you and me communicate online just about any way we want, completely under our individual control.

Available in a free preview edition from Ozzie's Groove Networks, Groove is a peer-to-peer platform that offers a dizzying array of ways to communicate on the Net. And it runs on your own PC rather than someone else's server, so you (rather than Microsoft or America Online or your company's information systems Kahuna) call all the shots.

Groove comes with a nicely integrated set of tools, among them instant messaging, voice, file sharing, contact management, discussion, outliner, shared browsing, calendar, picture swapping, event planning, project collaboration, and even tic-tac-toe. (You pick only the ones you want, set up a shared space, and invite other Groove users.)

That's just the start, though. Groove is not just an application but a platform, and a horde of developers will let you stuff in many other applications as well. (See "Former Notes Guru Gets Back in the Groove.")

Under the cover lurks more wizardry of Ozzie: formidable security plus tricks that allow Groove to work through firewalls and shared-network-address situations. Purists be advised: Groove is not completely peer-to-peer; dozens of Groove relay servers invisibly lend a hand out on the Net.

Ozzie got the idea for Groove while puzzling over the limitations of Notes and watching his teenage son play Quake with his friends. This was a perfect example, he realized, of a team solving problems together in the way they wanted--within a peer-to-peer setup that they controlled themselves.

Grooving Together

A quick look at Groove's preview edition shows a very slick interface that makes it easy to navigate, add tools, and make your presence known to other Groovers. Another nice touch: You never have to save anything; the package does that automatically. The package installs very easily but as befits preview software, there are some glitches, particularly in inviting other users. Groove runs on Windows machines with at least 64MB of memory, with a Linux version to come.

Groove Networks plans to make money with a premium version (arriving early next year at an undisclosed price), sales to corporations, and hosting services. "There always will be a free version, with relatively simple services like those in the preview edition," Ozzie adds.

The Web of course has gone wild in letting you hang out with your friends (old and new) via chat, instant messaging, videoconferencing, games, Web pages, photo swapping, and other cool tricks. Groove should be a handy addition here, and some consumer Web sites have big plans for it. (And yes, Ozzie's son uses his old man's software as well.)

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