Microsoft's Office SharePoint Server 2007,
or “MOSS” for short, is Microsoft's
first integrated server platform that aims to provide web content management,
enterprise content services, and enterprise search, as well as shared
business processes and business intelligence dashboarding to the small/medium
enterprise.
Like its predecessor SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) 2003/WSS 2.0, MOSS
is fundamentally dedicated to unstructured document storage, structured
list storage, and group collaboration. The word “share” has
not been removed from the mission concept, which goes something like “connecting
people, processes, and information.”
The six main features of SharePoint 2007 (MOSS)
Collaboration
By integrating Workspaces, Tasks, Forums, Surveys, Blogs, RSS and Wikis,
the platform builds on the wild success of the 2003 collaboration features
while hitting the Web 2.0 check box items for the new wave of collaboration
and knowledge management applications. Point players in this space —
SocialText, BlogTronix, SuiteTwo, eTouch, BaseCamp, Automattic, etc.
— will no doubt out perform in select areas, on a feature by feature
comparison, but previous adoption rates, customizability, and convenience
will carry MOSS a long way here.
Enterprise Search
Search was a bit of a painful thing with SPS 2003, especially when it
came to integrating various content stores. The core problems have been
addressed and the functionality broadly expanded. MOSS 2007 opens up
ACL-aware search across both local and remote data stores with features
that enable specialized search for people and expertise. The ability
to index and search data in line-of-business apps via the Business Data
Store integration is powerful and will please both business managers
and developers alike. The new “Best Bets” feature adds a
new depth of intelligence — pulling search hits from entitled
by not included search scopes. There's new meat here. We feel that in
this 2007 release, SharePoint search is transforming from a check box
to a compelling feature.
Portal
A one stop site for everything enterprise-related. This concept is getting
tired. Or maybe we're just tired of it. SharePoint is no longer branded
as a “portal server” in the 2007 version (though the word
is still in the product API Namespace). However, SharePoint still is
a portal framework and web parts are still portlets. In fact, this remains
one of the primary differentiators between the pay per CAL SharePoint
version and the free WSS offering. Some new goodness with Master Pages,
new flexibility with a pluggable Single Sign-on architecture, better
search, and much improved Visual Studio integration will help on the
portal side, but overall its not that exciting to talk about.
Web & Enterprise Content Management
This is the big one for us. Microsoft is including core document management,
major and minor versioning, check-in/check-out document locking, rich
descriptive metadata, workflow (via Windows Workflow Foundation), content
type-based policies, auditing, and role-based-access controls at the
document library, folder, and individual document levels. The 2007 release
builds on these capabilities delivering enhanced authoring, business
document processing, Web Content Management and publishing, records
management, policy management, and support for multilingual publishing.
Forms Driven Business Process
Microsoft has overhauled this aspect of SharePoint with XML driven InfoPath
forms that are available on a variety of platforms including portable
wireless devices. Client/Server based form maintenance has been centralized
and improved for business processes for partner and customers. This
area is not as close to our hearts, but is another dynamic one that
captures attention. As InfoPath gains momentum and additional integration
evolves between Visual Studio, InfoPath, and SharePoint, I predict we
will a strong uptick in the developer community.
Business Intelligence
Finally, BI has been improved across the board with web-based dashboards
on the macro level, server-based Excel Services and Excel Web Services
API's, line of business application and data repository integration,
and more sophisticated abilities to monitor key performance indicators.
Despite Microsoft's Performance Point BI server, this is one area of
MOSS that we feel has the ability to shift the market. SharePoint 2003
transformed workgroup document storage and collaboration. We believe
that SharePoint 2007 aims to do the same thing with BI. By enabling
business users to build-out simple integration, dashboarding, and PKI
monitoring MS are definitely looking for the next dimension for SharePoint
growth.
