Groove 2007 vs MOSS 2007 vs WSS 3.0 vs Communicator 2007 (Part 3)
This posts follows on from Post 2 and is part of a 6 part series of posts.
Product Implementation
The matrix below aims to succinctly compare how Communicator 2007, Groove 2007, WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 are implemented architecturally.
Functionality |
Communicator 2007 / OCS 2007 |
Groove 2007 / Groove Server 2007 |
WSS 3.0 |
MOSS 2007 |
Client install required |
ü |
ü |
||
Communication |
Real time |
Asynchronous and Real time |
Asynchronous |
Asynchronous |
Cross-network collaboration |
ü (Public IM contacts from Yahoo, MSN, Windows Live etc as well as federated contacts from other organisations). |
ü (Other Groove 2007 users can be added to a workspace without shared directory services) |
ü (Users in different network environments have access to WSS 3.0 sites if they reside in a trusted domain) |
ü (Users in different network environments have access to MOSS 2007 sites if they reside in a trusted domain) |
Integration with other Microsoft Office system products |
ü (WSS 3.0, Groove, Outlook, Word, Excel, Microsoft Office PowerPoint®, Microsoft Office OneNote® and MOSS 2007) |
ü (WSS 3.0, MOSS 2007, InfoPath 2007 and OCS 2007) |
ü (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, InfoPath, Project, OneNote, Groove and Communicator 2007) |
ü (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, InfoPath, Project, OneNote, Groove and Communicator 2007) |
Integration with Line Of Business (LOB) programs |
ü (Using Groove Server 2007 Data Bridge) |
ü (Using Business Data Catalog) |
||
Integration with Office SharePoint Designer 2007 |
ü |
ü |
||
Maximum individual file size |
4 GB |
2 GB |
50 MB by default but can be configured to a maximum of 2 GB |
50 MB by default but can be configured to a maximum of 2 GB |
Maximum size of collaboration area |
N/A |
2 GB by default or 5000 documents (recommended) |
Five million documents per library |
Five million documents per library |
Offline working |
ü |
ü (When Outlook 2007 or Groove 2007 is integrated) |
ü (When Outlook 2007 or Groove 2007 is integrated) |
|
Peer-to-peer synchronisation |
ü |
ü |
||
Primary storage location |
N/A |
Client |
Server |
Server |
Recommended number of users |
Between 6 and 10 in a Group IM session, maximum of 100 |
Between 2 and 30 in one workspace |
2,000,000 per Web site |
2,000,000 per Web site |
Server install required |
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
Suitable for low bandwidth network or high latency connections |
ü (50kbps minimum) |
ü |
The matrix above shows how WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 are very similar. They have identical and relatively high constraints on the number of users and documents that can be added to a collaboration area. In contrast, Groove 2007 and Communicator 2007 are suitable for smaller teams that want to share fewer documents.
Groove 2007 and Communicator 2007 have the same install needs but whilst Groove 2007 stores the files on each team members’ computer, Communicator 2007 provides shared views of the same files. Unlike Groove 2007, Communicator 2007 also facilitates real-time editing of files.
In my next post, I will aim to consolidate all of the information from this post, Post 1 and Post 2 to help explain the scenarios in which each product should be used.