LAS VEGAS--The reason, he believes, is that e-mail, like the phone or fax machine, is fundamentally a technology for individuals to communicate with one another. Enterprises as a whole, however, turn to applications and databases to match or change their business processes, said Ozzie, the creator of Notes, during a keynote speech here Tuesday at Giga Information Group Inc.'s GigaWorld IT Forum.
That observation has played a pivotal role in Ozzie's newest venture as founder, chairman and CEO of Groove Networks Inc., which in April released an enterprise version of its collaboration software based on peer-to-peer technology.
The phone, the fax and e-mail are essentially peer technologies even if they don't literally connect directly to one another without central servers, Ozzie observed.
"The user just needs to know a phone number or e-mail address and from their perspective, in a peer manner, they can connect the people they need to connect," Ozzie said. "They don't have to call up IT to set up an app to send a fax from point A to point B. It's a very spontaneous type of technology."
Groove's software follows the same philosophy, Ozzie said, and includes management and security features for enterprise IT. It allows users to create multiple groups working in shared spaces where they can collaborate through messaging, threaded discussions, sketching, file sharing and voice. Users can also build tools and applications. Ozzie demonstrated product design collaboration through Groove.
Early customers include pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC and the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (or DARPA).
Groove, though, is only the beginning of a trend Ozzie sees toward peer-to-peer because of the way that business needs have shifted over the past decade. Where data access and collaboration inside an enterprise were critical in the 1990s, such access and collaboration across enterprises have become the new imperative as companies move into more strategic outsourcing and partnering, he said.
"It's a decentralized business environment now ... and the technology should be equally decentralized," Ozzie said.
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