There's a long answer, and a short answer. Let me try to give you both.
Briefly: we plan to continue to develop both variants of the forms tool,
and we're interested both in expanding the role of InfoPath in releases
after Groove 2007 and also converging the feature sets.
At more length:
For Groove 2007 we had quite a short development cycle from the April 2005
acquisition to today where the final release is quickly approaching. The
"native" Groove Forms tool has a central role in enabling workspaces to
support structured team activities, from simple lists and discussions
through complex workflow and tracking applications; we've made some
significant improvements in the forms tool for this release, including
quite a lot of work in the underlying database engine's structures, and
also some improvements to designer usability. At the same time, we
realize that InfoPath is a strategically important forms environment (and
in some ways, such as handling of nested data structures, much richer than
Groove's own forms tool), so for this release we built a first
implementation of InfoPath form integration with Groove. Due to the short
timescale, though, there are some restrictions in place: the InfoPath form
sandboxing, the separate designer environment, and so on.
Underneath, Forms and InfoPath Forms tools are really "the same" in lots
of important respects. The Groove 2007 implementation is actually a
single code-base for both.
We're now beginning some detailed planning for the next major release
cycle of Office. One thing we're looking for is much tighter integration
of Groove into a variety of Office-based activities -- including
SharePoint, which we're really excited about -- and forms-based
applications and services are a very important part of that. We don't yet
have any concrete plans to share, but there's an opportunity to achieve
several things simultaneously: [a] close synergy between Groove, the
other Office desktop applications, and servers around the types of
applications which are commonly built with Groove Forms;
extending
the power and usability of InfoPath forms within Groove; and [c]
protecting the investment of people who have built or are building
workgroup applications using the "native" Groove Forms tool (and
scripting, etc) while opening new opportunities.
So, I think the answers to your questions directly are
- We're not planning to remove the Forms tool; quite the contrary;
- Yes, further work on both Forms and InfoPath Forms is planned;
- Better integration of forms design tools and Groove is an important goal
for us.
Naturally this is all pretty vague. I hope you don't mind my reluctance
to make firm commitments (we're really only just beginning the planning
cycle). If you'd like a detailed "futures" briefing as we go forward,
please work with your local account rep to set up that type of
face-to-face discussion. For specific scenarios around application
development features and requirements, feel free to contact me directly;
that's what I'm here for...
--
Hugh Pyle / Program Manager / Microsoft Office Groove
http://blogs.msdn.com/hughpyle/
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
in message
i understand that infopath is the choice of form tools for MS, and that
the form tool is currently being kept. Is the long term option going to be
removing the form tool or running both tools? the infopath tool
intergration in groove is a bit clunky and the form tool is quite flexable
within the groove environment.
Is there going to be further work done on the form tool or is it a case
it will be phased out for favour of the infopath option?
That possibly being the case will there be a better intergration of the
tool into groove or will it be a case of having to work with two
applications.?
--
Marc Dimmick
"The best way to predict the future is to create it" - Dr. Peter F.
Drucker
