Until now, you've been selling Groove software mainly to smaller work groups of people. Do you think that there will be a shift in how you sell, perhaps to larger organisations?
The nature of what [we] do is dynamically serving small work groups…[But] this [acquisition] will clearly, over time, increase the potential for larger opportunities than Groove Networks ourselves, with our limited resources, could attack.
Can you tell me about how it came together?
There isn't a great story about some cool, catalyzing event. We've been in touch with each other for quite a while. I first showed the product to Bill [Gates] back in 1997.
We've been working together in various ways over the years. The timing is mostly relevant in two dimensions. Number one, Groove has reached a certain level of maturity. We just shipped [Groove Virtual Office] 3.1.
And number two, from the Microsoft side, it should be clear that they have taken on communications and collaboration as what's beyond personal productivity. And it's taking the forefront in their offerings. I think them seeing how we uniquely solve a certain set of problems in the realm of cross-organisational and mobile usage fills out their product offerings quite nicely.
What kind of adjustments do you see working within Microsoft — a much larger organisation — where you'll be working at least part-time from the other coast?
There will be adjustments. I've been going back and forth between small and large. Iris was small. IBM was large. Groove was small. I think the trade-off (is) as a small company you have much more direct interaction with customers and partners, and you can focus all of your energy on executing one thing extremely well. At a larger organisation, you have the potential for a broader impact, but probably a little shallower… I look forward to having a broader impact in the larger context.
Bill Gates was clearly excited when he talked about how happy he was about your coming on board. What are your feelings about working with him and others at Microsoft?
I look forward to being part of that leadership team. [It's] a lot of very smart people, and that's what makes it fun to come to work.
When do you start, and how often will you be in Redmond, Washington, as opposed to in Massachusetts?
I'll start when the merger closes. We don't anticipate it's going to be very long — probably in the second quarter. At that point in time, I'm going to try to average half time out there and half time out here. I don't have a lot of firm viewpoints beyond that. The use of collaboration tools we expect to be pretty intense. And it's going to be a positive learning experience for both them and us.
