Groove Networks Closes $38 Million Financing; Includes Microsoft, Intel Capital, Accel Partners and Other Existing Investors.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers BEVERLY, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 5, 2003 Groove Networks Groove Networks is a software company based in Beverly, Massachusetts. Founded by Ray Ozzie, the creator of IBM's Lotus Notes application, the privately held company specializes in productivity software that allows multiple users to work collaboratively on computer files Inc., a leading provider of decentralized de·cen·tral·ize v. de·cen·tral·ized, de·cen·tral·iz·ing, de·cen·tral·iz·es v.tr. 1. To distribute the administrative functions or powers of (a central authority) among several local authorities. desktop collaboration software See collaborative software. , today announced it has closed a fifth-round financing of $38 million, with investments from all existing investors, including Microsoft Corp., Intel Capital, Accel Partners and private investors. With this financing, the company has now raised more than $155 million since its founding in October 1997 by CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Ray Ozzie Ray Ozzie (born November 20, 1955) is Chief Software Architect at Microsoft. He was formerly best known for his role in creating Lotus Notes. He grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois, graduating from Maine South High School in 1973. . The company shipped the first commercial version of its product in April 2001. Groove Networks said it will use the additional funds to support ongoing operations. "We've always been excited by Groove's networked application because it represented a new breed of software that takes full advantage of the PC and the rich communication aspects of the Internet," said Jeff Raikes, Group Vice President, Microsoft Productivity and Business Services Group. "This additional investment demonstrates our confidence in Groove's ability to deliver unique solutions that complement Microsoft technologies and infrastructure allowing customers to be more flexible and responsive." Groove Networks also announced it has completed a restructuring of its sales, marketing and services organizations, resulting in the elimination of 58 positions, or 20 percent of its workforce. The majority of jobs eliminated are at the company's Beverly, Mass., headquarters. The company said the reorganization will reduce its sales and marketing costs, reflecting the current reality of extended Fortune 500 enterprise software sales cycles. Earlier this month, the company shipped Groove Workspace version 2.5, which features further extensibility with Microsoft Outlook For the e-mail and news client bundled with certain versions of Microsoft Windows, see . Microsoft Outlook or Outlook (full name Microsoft Office Outlook and a new toolset for Microsoft SharePoint(TM) Team Services (STS (Synchronous Transport Signal) The electrical equivalent of the SONET optical signal. In SDH, the European counterpart of SONET, STS is known as STM (Synchronous Transport Module). ). The new toolset provides STS customers with a team Web site solution that supports online and offline use, and works securely across company firewalls. The company also shipped a Toolkit for Microsoft Visual Studio Microsoft Visual Studio is Microsoft's flagship software development product for computer programmers. It centers on an integrated development environment which lets programmers create standalone applications, web sites, web applications, and web services that run on any platforms .NET that makes it dramatically easier for developers to create solutions for the Groove platform, and Groove Web Services (1) Loosely, any online service delivered over the Web. Such usage appears in articles from non-technical sources, but not in IT-oriented publications, because definition #2 below describes the correct use of the term. , a standards-based integration framework that extends the reach of Groove Workspace to people, devices and applications that previously couldn't use, or connect to Groove. In its review of Groove Workspace v2.5, InfoWorld, an industry trade publication, suggested businesses should "deploy" Groove, and gave the product the highest scores possible for innovation and security. The complete review is available at: http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/02/14/07groove_1.html. About Groove Networks Founded in October 1997 and headquartered in Beverly, Mass., Groove Networks Inc. provides software for secure intra- and cross-organization collaboration that provides a 10x improvement over email alone for getting work done. For more information about Groove Networks, visit http://www.groove.net. Groove Networks and Groove are registered trademarks of Groove Networks Inc. All other trademarks are owned by their respective companies. |
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