Ray Ozzie off to Microsoft

Ray Ozzie, creator of Lotus Notes, founder of Groove Networks, and dare I say a founding father of groupware, is joining Microsoft as the company's chief technology officer! Reports around the world, like this one in ComputerWorld, describe it as a move by Microsoft to fill a gap in it's current collaborative offerings.

According to Groove's own press release on the matter, "Ozzie will assume the role of chief technical officer, reporting to Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, chairman and chief software architect, with responsibility for influencing corporatewide communication and collaboration offerings and associated platform infrastructure. Ozzie also will continue his work with the Groove team, which will be part of Microsoft's Information Worker Group."

It's going to be very interesting to see what impact Groove's expertise will have on Microsoft's collaborative tools.