Or was it to get hold of Ray Ozzie himself?

Since the purchase, we've heard little about Groove. A quick scan of their website (at http://www.groove.net) shows something that's, shall we say, less than dynamic. The last press room update was last July. There are links that don't work, and which end up in a Microsoft "can't find the page" page.

There's a link to a white paper, written by David Marshak, who is now Lotus's Product Manager for Sametime (though he wasn't when he wrote it). There appears to be no current product. There's lots of download links, but the Store page announces that Groove Virtual Office 3.1 is no longer available -- and points at a beta of Microsoft Office Groove 2007 instead. Hmmm.

So, Ray Ozzie.

It's now clear that what Microsoft wanted was Ray Ozzie, the man, rather than Groove's products and ideas. The recent announcement, that of Ray replacing Bill Gates as Chief Technology Officer, made mainstream TV news programs and newspaper articles around the world.

As you might expect, most the coverage concentrated on Microsoft and Bill Gates, rather than on Ray, because, of course, Bill stepping down to do charity work with his foundation was indeed the main story. But to our interest, the story has to be what happens next at Microsoft.

The UK Guardian newspaper, in its weekly technology section, Thursday 22 June, under the title "The end of the death march", claims that "Microsoft is bloated, bureaucratic and bogged down". The article (at http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1803275,00.html), under a photo of Ray speaking at the annual meeting, with Bill in the background, didn't actually once mention Ray Ozzie, even though it was all about the need to steer Microsoft through a period of change, and that Bill seems no longer to want to do it.

So what's really going on?

No doubt Microsoft is a large and bureaucratic company. It makes large and complex software products. And like many large and complex software projects, most seem to run late and tend to deliver less than promised. As an aside, one has to contrast this with current Lotus Notes/Domino development, where even if the dates have been a bit flexible, the delivery has pretty much been what was promised -- or maybe Lotus is just better at promise management.