Groove teams with CH2M Hill

Groove Networks officials will supply the company's Virtual Office collaboration product to CH2M Hill, which will package the software in a variety of solutions, including an incident management package for state, local and federal agencies. Officials from the two companies announced the alliance today at the AFCEA International homeland security show.

CH2M's iCIT incident response offering uses Virtual Office as a secure communications backbone. It allows emergency workers to create a common operating environment, even if they are working across firewalls, or working offline.

"No matter the episode, incident management effectiveness requires the language of geography, the art of communication and the science of engineering to develop an intelligent common operating picture," said Jim Reps, vice president of marketing and product development in CH2M Hill's communication and information solutions group, in a written statement. "Groove Virtual Office brings the art of communication to a new level for incident managers. [It] allows distributed teams to more quickly, efficiently and effectively develop an intelligent common operating picture, as if they were all working together in the same room. "