I have now completed another new e-Book called ‘Getting Started with SharePoint Online for Enterprises’. The cost is again only USD $1.99 and it contains over 40 pages of step by step tutorials, with screen shots, on using the SharePoint Team Site that comes with Office 365 Enterprise plans (E SKUs). This makes it a perfect document to either use if you are new to SharePoint Online or if you have customers looking to understand what SharePoint can do in Office 365.

This means you can select from two Getting Started with SharePoint Online for Office 365 eBooks:

For Enterprises (E SKUs)

and

For Professionals and Small Business (P SKU)

Even though SharePoint Online is very similar between the two offerings there are enough differences to make it confusing and therefore the need for two separate books in my opinion. Both cover the same information, however things such as the look and feel and what SharePoint components are available by default vary between the plans. So select the eBook that matches you plan if you want to get the most from it.

You’ll find this new e-Book along with other publications I have including:

SharePoint Foundation Master Class: Search Server Express on SBS 2011 Standard

Windows SharePoint Master Class:Tutorials

Getting started with Companyweb 2010

and more at:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/ciaops?cid=cms_email_author_spotlight_confirmation

My next eBook project will most likely be a set of tutorial around using SharePoint Online for each plan. If you have any suggestion for what sort of information you’d like to see in an upcoming eBook on Office 365 or SharePoint Online please contact me (director@ciaops.com).

As mentioned in yesterday’s blog post I have now completed a new e-Book called ‘Getting Started with SharePoint Online for Small Business’. The cost is only USD $1.99 and it contains over 40 pages of step by step tutorials, with screen shots, on using the SharePoint Team Site that comes with Office 365 Professional and Small Business (P SKU). This makes it a perfect document to either use if you are new to SharePoint Online or if you have customers looking to understand what SharePoint can do in Office 365.

You’ll find this new e-Book along with other publications I have including:

SharePoint Foundation Master Class: Search Server Express on SBS 2011 Standard

Windows SharePoint Master Class:Tutorials

Getting started with Companyweb 2010

and more at:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/ciaops?cid=cms_email_author_spotlight_confirmation

Make sure you check back with my online store (or this blog) real soon as the next publication I am working on is ‘Getting Started with SharePoint Online for Enterprise’.

I have been working on a new e-book that provides a tutorial on ‘Getting Started with SharePoint Online for Small Business’ and I was struck by how poorly SharePoint has once again been promoted by Microsoft.

To explain what I mean take a look at the ‘default’ SharePoint version on Small Business Server 2010 (i.e. Companyweb), which many small businesses have seen.

Here’s you’ll find Shared Documents, a Calendar, Tasks and a Picture library. In contrast have a look at what you get the Office 365 Team Site for the Professional and Small Business versions (P SKU).

All you basically get is a page with a Posts web part and a single document library. Every other feature has to be added manually. Given that most people coming to Office 365 have probably never seen SharePoint having such a bland page, devoid of simple features like a calendar, wiki, contacts list does the SharePoint product no justice in my eyes. Many will look at it and wonder what it is for. Others will simply use it as a place to save documents without utilizing any of the features that sets SharePoint apart, like, sorting, filtering, views, meta data, just to name a few.

To me it would have made much more sense to provide a standard Team Site for SharePoint Online for the Professional and Small Business version. This Team Site has many of the standard features already exposed and ready for use. I’d pretty much bet that most people using this version of Office 365 would make use of a shared calendar at the very least.

My guess would be that Microsoft used this Express version of the Team Site to reduce the complexity and make it simple to users new to SharePoint but honestly I think that it actually going to achieve the reverse. It is going to make them shy away from using SharePoint because they can’t see many of the features. To me it makes more sense for the items to be there and not be used than to be hidden from users who would have no idea that they even exist and how to go about adding them.

Keep you eye peeled for the next blog post where I’ll provide you with the information about my new e-Book (for only $USD 1.99) that provides a basic tutorial on getting started with SharePoint Online. You’ll find it my online bookstore along with other SharePoint titles and tutorials.

I certainly hope that people using Office 365 take the time to delve into SharePoint to find out how powerful it is but honestly Microsoft have not made it easy or enticing have they now?