Groove Networks Inc. this week will ship version 2.5 of its workgroup software and release a new API that relies on the Simple Object Access Protocol instead of Component Object Model.

Groove Workspace 2.5 will include greater integration with Microsoft's Outlook E-mail program, including the ability for Outlook users to move E-mail discussions and associated Office files into Groove's peer-to-peer environment, share calendar entries with Groove, and invite other users from an Outlook address book into a Groove session.

Groove sells PC software that lets teams of workers co-edit documents and share discussion threads. Users can work offline and update team members when they reconnect to a network. Microsoft holds a 19% stake in Groove, which was founded in 1997 by Lotus Notes developer Ray Ozzie.

In addition to sharing more functions with Outlook, Workspace 2.5 will let users of Microsoft's Sharepoint Team Services software import documents into Groove and share them across firewalls. Groove also says it will supplement an API to its software based on Microsoft's COM with a Web services interface to its functions based on Soap. Using the new API, independent software vendors could expose Groove functions through a Web browser, which could let Macintosh users participate in Groove peer-to-peer workspaces, product manager Matt Pope says. The Soap API is also easier to write to, he says.

Parametric Technology Corp., a developer of CAD/CAM software, this week said it's using the new API to let users of its upcoming Pro/Engineer Wildfire software share files.