SharePoint

Today, Microsoft has rolled out a new service Office 365, which is a reincarnation of the SaaS package BPOS. The name change was expected, since Microsoft critics have referred BPOS as "Big Piece of Shit" instead of "Business Productivity Online Services". But not only name is to be changed. The new service except SaaS versions Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online and Lync Online, will include the online office tools Office Web Apps. I.e. Office 365 can now be considered as a full-fledged alternative to Google Apps. The service will be available in 2 editions. Small Business Edition for companies with less than 25 users costs $6/user/month and includes the basic functions. Enterprise edition provides additional customization and administration features, full functionality and provides users with desktop suite Office Office Professional Plus with pay-as-you-go licensing. This edition costs from $2 to $ 27/user/month depending on configuration. Recall, Microsoft also plans to include its CRM and ERP to the SaaS suite. At the moment, Office 365 is in beta stage and will be available worldwide next year.

Just yesterday we talked about Sharepoint Workspace - the tool which allows to sync files between Sharepoint server and user's computer, and today the cloud file collaborative service Box.net (which is positioned as a Sharepoint alternative) released the similar tool Box Sync. This is a program that is installed on your computer and allows you to sync any folder in your online Box.net account with desktop. If you change any file in that folder, it will be immediately synced, and those users who have access to this folder - will receive an alert. For now Box Sync is only available for Windows and only in the paid (business) accounts. Versions for Mac and Linux, as well as the free version will appear later this year.

We have already mentioned that p2p collaboration app MS Office Groove was renamed to SharePoint Workspace and utilized as an offline client for Sharepoint. Now we have got the chance to see SharePoint Workspace 2010 in action and it appears that offline access to Sharepoint - is not the only function of this application. First, SharePoint Workspace can be used without Sharepoint - as well as MS Office Groove. I.e. you can create Groove Workspace (with files, calendar, discussions) and sync it with computers of co-workers or customers. However, the audio-chat and permission levels disappeared from the application. Recall that SharePoint Workspace is not sold as a part of Sharepoint Server, but as a part of Office 2010 Pro Plus.

Last week together with Office 2010, Sharepoint 2010 was officially released. Of course, this is an important event for Enterprise 2.0 industry, however, not so important as we expected. Because despite the fact that Sharepoint 2010 was introduced as a cloud solution, at the moment neither Hosted, nor SaaS version of Sharepoint 2010 are not available. Hosted version (in BPOS-D) will be available only by the end of the year. SaaS-version (Sharepoint Online) by the end of the year will will be available for beta testing and official release is expected only in mid-2011. (We included Sharepoint Online in our Top 10 cloud platforms for Enterprise, but apparently that was too early). And now about the positive moments: Sharepoint 2010 really contains a lot of improvements that will strengthen its (almost monopolistic) position of the intranet platforms market:

If you develop SaaS service or intend to move the IT infrastructure to the Internet, then, of course, you can buy VPS or dedicated server. But in the era of Cloud Computing that option is obsolete. If you want to have a really reliable, secure and scalable hosting,  to automate most operations and (eventually) save money, it is logical to use one of the cloud platforms. And, depending on your goal, you can select a very interesting solution, which provides far more opportunities superior than conventional hosting. For example, for SaaS developers some platforms provide ready client base. Below - our top ten list of cloud platforms.

When Google Apps Marketplace launched, we noticed that Google's partner Salesforce hadn't joined this ecosystem. Now it's clear why. Salesforce is building its own ecosystem of collaborative applications around Chatter. Although Chatter (Facebook for enterprise) is nothing like Google Apps (email + docs), however the aim of both tools is the same - collaboration. At the ChatterExchange presentation, Marc Benioff has clearly stated that Chatter will compete with MS Sharepoint and IBM Lotus Notes (he modestly omitted Google Apps). "Don't be confused that these systems have little in common" - said Benioff, - "the fact that Sharepoint and Lotus Notes were created back in these days when people didn't use Twitter and Facebook and when the top collaborative technologies were email and shared folders".

First of all, 2010 will be the year when Microsoft becomes a strong Enterprise 2.0 market player. This year Microsoft will launch the commercial versions of online MS Office, Sharepoint 2010 with web 2.0 features and Windows Azure cloud platform, and these products will of course push ahead SaaS and enterprise Social Software technologies. Besides, we expect revolutions in mobile enterprise technologies and VoIP sphere.

This is a revolutionary step for Microsoft. Christian Finn, Sharepoint product manager, has announced that the company will open App marketplace for Sharepoint 2010 - something similar to Salesforce's AppExchange. So the army of Microsoft-oriented developers will get access to the large customer base of  Sharepoint users. The App store will evolve out of The Gallery (a resource within Sharepoint 2010 that serves as a central place for templates) and will be in available for installation by admins and users (under the admin control). Besides the App marketplace, Sharepoint 2010 will make the developers happy by closer integration with Visual Studio 2010, enhanced Silverlight support, new opportunities for integration external applications and data sources (with the help of Business Connectivity Services) and large lists optimization feature.

The suite of Web-services for creating collaborative websites Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) is renamed to SharePoint Foundation 2010. What has changed in the new version? For users - it's a new Ribbon-interface (like in Office 2007) with extensive use of Ajax and Silverlight technologies. Improved customization allow to build branded sites. Of course, the new version SharePoint Foundation 2010 is designed for use in conjunction with the upcoming Office 2010 and a new offline client SharePoint Workspace 2010 (former Groove, which was a part of MS Office). The new version will be especially useful for administrators as it contains a lot of new administrative tools. In particular, SharePoint Health Analyzer (which monitors the state of the Sharepoint-server), sandbox for websites and Windows PowerShell - new command-line interface. Developers will utilize Business Connectivity Services which enable to easily integrate Sharepoint with other business applications.

Today at the MS Project Conference in Phoenix Microsoft previewed the next generation of its project management system MS Project 2010. And the new version is quite interesting. It's generally known, that the main lack of MS Project is that it's not suitable for collaboration. Common users never understood its interface, and it never provided collaborative tools. Microsoft fixed this problem in its own way. First, MS Project will work only on top of SharePoint 2010 Server and will be integrated in it. So users will be able to create a project site (with Gantt Chart and task list) and easily share it in Sharepoint. Second, Project 2010 will be connected to Exchange Server and all the project tasks will be available in Outlook, Outlook Web Access and Outlook Exchange for Mobile.

The new version of the enterprise portal solution MS Office Sharepoint Server 2007 (MOSS) is a web-based platform on top of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 that Microsoft wants to make a front-end to all other company's server products, as well as to all other enterprise applications and data sources. One of the most important innovations in SharePoint Server 2007 - is integration between intranet and extranet. It includes the web-content management tools, that previously were part of Microsoft Content Management Server. The WCM and ECM functions are enhanced with InfoPath forms, built-in workflow-engine, improved search and new social tools - Wiki, RSS and blogs.

From today the new version Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 (WSS) is available for download for all Windows Server 2003 users. WSS - is a free set of Web-tools that enable to create intranet sites for collaboration and data access. WSS 3.0 includes the social features that are getting popular in the Enterprise world: blogs, Wiki and RSS. In addition, the new version provides improved access control and version control systems, improved mobile access and integration with the upcoming Microsoft Office 2007. WSS 3.0 is built on .NET Framework 2.0 and supports .NET Framework 3.0 Windows Workflow Foundation, which allows to automate workflow. Along with the release of Office 2007 (which is scheduled for 30 January 2007) the set of 40 templates for WSS 3.0 will be released. These templates will help to quickly create intranet sites for HR, sales force, project management teams, etc.

Today, along with the release of new MS Office 2003, Microsoft has released the new version of its enterprise portal software SharePoint Portal Server. Yes, Sharepoint Portal - is now a part of the Microsoft Office suite and has an official name Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Interestingly, the lite free edition of this product Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) has recently moved in the opposite direction - from MS Office to MS Windows Server. Microsoft reps explain that SharePoint Portal is a product and SharePoint Services is a technology. By the way, the new version of SharePoint Portal uses WSS as a platform (hence, it uses .Net Framework and MS SQL Server). As you may recall, the new version WSS 2.0, that was released this summer, added a lot of collaborative functions, so it's interesting what is the added value of SharePoint Portal.

As promised, Microsoft made the new version of  the web-collaboration extension SharePoint Team Services a part of is operating system (formerly it was bundled with MS Office). Accordingly, the name was changed to Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). The new version WSS 2.0 was recently released and is available for download as a free addition to Windows Server 2003. The main feature of the new version is that it's fully based on .NET Framework that greatly simplifies development of sites and business applications. Unlike its predecessor, WSS 2.0 uses SQL Server to store not only metadata, but also documents themselves. WSS 2.0 also provides tools to track document versions, share calendars, use messenger and create collaborative Web-sites without the need to involve IT staff.

Following the release of free MS Office extension for creating internal collaborative web-sites SharePoint Team Services, Microsoft has uveiled a full-fledged (and paid) enterprise portal SharePoint Portal Server 1.0, that will compete with portal solutions from IBM and Oracle. SharePoint Portal Server enables companies to create internal portals for collaboration and data access from both local and external sources. In particular, the portal includes tools for document management, search and creating sites with the help of Web Parts technology. It uses IIS web-server and Web Storage System (WSS) database that is used also in Microsoft Exchange. Users can access portals via web browser. Unlike SharePoint Team Services the portal provides more advanced tools for document management, version control, workflow management, search, access control and creating websites. SharePoint Portal Server is targeted primarily for medium and large companies and cost - $6,999 for a 25-user license.

Today, Microsoft has unveiled a new version of its office suite Office XP, which includes an interesting tool for intranet collaboration - SharePoint Team Services. However, this is not a completely new technology but a new name for the Office Server Extensions package. But unlike its predecessor, SharePoint Team Services is a web-based application that works not in Outlook but in Internet browser. Sharepoint Team Services allows you to create an intranet or extranet sites for collaboration and data access. To simplify the site creation it uses the Web Parts technology that we have already mentioned. Sharepoint Team Services contains templates for standard pages: Document Library, Custom List, Survey, Discussion Board, Links, Announcements, Contacts.

Microsoft has introduced a new technology Web Parts for SharePoint Team Services. SharePoint Team Services - is a new name for Office Server Extensions - the web extensions for Windows Server that allow companies to create internal websites aggregating data from internal and external sources and view them in Outlook. New Technology Web Parts will greatly facilitate the creation of such sites. Web Part - is a Web page block that can be reused in multiple sites. This makes it possible to use already existing blocks, created by Microsoft or other companies (for example, a CRM developer can create a web part for its CRM system and the customers will only have to insert it into a web page). Portal users can choose the parts they need and arrange them on a web page. The data exchange between the web part and third-party applications and data sources is XML-based .