Remember last July when Microsoft announced their Groove Music Service?
My take at that time was that using the name Groove, which was part of an acquisition in 2005 when Microsoft bought Ray Ozzzie’s Groove Networks, would create some naming confusion.
To exacerbate that there was also a company called Groove who had built iOS and Windows Phone apps called Groove Smart Music Player. That app was still actively available in both app stores at the time that Microsoft decided to rename Xbox Music to Groove Music.
At that time, in early July 2015, I contacted the Groove team and asked what they thought about Microsoft using their previously established product name in one of their products but unfortunately they did not have any comments at that time about the situation.
This morning, just over seven months later, that has apparently changed with the news that the Groove team has sold their current Groove apps and associated domain name to Microsoft.
In an email exchange with the Groove team today after this news broke they confirmed that their iOS and Windows Phone apps named Groove Music Smart Player have been pulled from both app stores and the groovemusicapp.com domain name has also been transferred over to Microsoft. Currently that domain name is redirecting to Microsoft’s Groove Music site.
I also asked the Montreal, Canada based team what the purchase price was for this acquisition but they told me that is information they are unable to share publicly.
I wonder why it took seven months for Microsoft to take these steps? Surely it was not that long of a negotiation.
