Tag: SharePoint

SharePoint versions

Many people think that there is only one version of SharePoint. They then get confused between Windows SharePoint Server (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). They get further confused between what features are and are not included in each edition.

As I get asked the question all the time I think the best answer I can give is to have look at “Which SharePoint technology is right for you” from Microsoft that provides a side by side comparison of all the different flavours of SharePoint. Be warned there is a lot of information to digest here. Perhaps an easier way to understand the different features set is to download the SharePoint product comparison spreadsheet that sets out the comparison using Excel which makes it much easier to understand.

In all of this don’t forget that a new version of SharePoint is on the way which will mean changes again to these charts (hopefully not too much).

One thing that all these documents don’t cover is the price. In simple terms, Windows SharePoint Services is available as a free download, while Microsoft Office SharePoint Server requires purchasing the appropriate licensing.

Hope that makes things a little easier to understand.

Plain English

I’ve always been a big fan of the YouTube videos that Common Craft have created. Ones like RSS in Plain English and Blogs in Plain English provide a really simply introduction to these technology in a fun and entertaining manner. In many cases these videos help explain some of the technology that comes with SharePoint. Well now there is a Common Craft video specifically about SharePoint called SharePoint in Plain English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s12Jb5Z2xaE

It gives people a good overview of what SharePoint can do and I like the way that is especially targeted at the typical use a business person would require from SharePoint, managing a project. I’ve always found SharePoint can be hard to explain to people because it accomplishes such a wide variety of things but I think this video does a pretty good job of at least making it a little clearer.

 

As always, don’t forget that my Windows SharePoint Operations Guide contains a whole swag of SharePoint videos and training as well as almost 1,500 pages of technical content on Windows SharePoint. The Guide is designed to help you get up to speed with not only using SharePoint but also helping your customers and business partners understand the benefits that SharePoint can provide them.

 

Finally, don’t forget that I too have created some free demonstration SharePoint videos which can be found at my old YouTube Saturn Alliance account or my new Director CIAOPS account. Also, visit Common Craft for their range of videos on a huge range of topics (not just technology).

SharePoint Thrives

If you wanted further confirmation that a major business opportunity exists in and around SharePoint then “Microsoft’s SharePoint Thrives in the Recession” from the New York Times is worth a read.

“We don’t claim we do everything,” said Chris Capossela, a senior vice president at Microsoft. “If we do 50 percent of the functions that these other companies do, but they’re the ones customers really want, that’s fine. The magic is that end users actually like to use the software.”

No technology can honestly claim to do everything and SharePoint is no different. Given how flexible it is you do have to say that it does a great many thinks pretty well and that is what makes it such a great solution for many businesses.

Microsoft declines to break out the exact sales figures for the software but said that SharePoint broke the $1 billion revenue mark last year and continued to rise past that total this year, making it the hottest selling server-side product ever for the company.

So if it is still growing while other software is declining why aren’t more people considering it? Imagine what will happen when more businesses find that Windows SharePoint is free to download or already included with their systems (i.e. for Small Business Server). When this happens the demand certainly isn’t going to decline.

Microsoft has managed to undercut even the panoply of open-source companies playing in the business software market by giving away a free basic license to SharePoint if they already have Windows Server. “It’s a brilliant strategy that mimics open source in its viral, free distribution, but transcends open source in its ability to lock customers into a complete, not-free-at-all Microsoft stack – one for which they’ll pay more and more the deeper they get into SharePoint,” Mr. Asay said.

This is exactly the reason that Microsoft provide Windows SharePoint for free, because it locks the customer into using more and more Microsoft products which is fine because they provide a solution and a great return on investment. Given that Windows SharePoint is also free it means there are far less hurdles to implementation.

By making these more sophisticated tools available to customers, Microsoft thinks it can keep pushing niche software makers out of the way and give business people, rather than just the tech folks, a way to work with business applications.

Again, here’s another key feature. SharePoint can easily be utilized by business users to suit their needs. As I have always said SharePoint is tool just like Excel or Word, it starts out blank but you really create something fantastic using it. Most business owners fear that if they implement something they will need to keep paying for any change required. With SharePoint they can do it themselves.

If you are a technology provider and you haven’t looked at the opportunity SharePoint presents then you are missing out on the hottest game in town. If you want to get up to speed fast with Windows SharePoint consider my Windows SharePoint Operations Guide (www.wssops.com) which is packed with all the information that you’ll need to install, maintain and manage Windows SharePoint. I’m pretty sure you won’t find another single location with as much information on Windows SharePoint as the Guide.

No matter what the economic conditions there are always opportunities for the savvy and clearly SharePoint is one of them. I’d also tell you not to forget the opportunity that OneNote presents but that is a topic for another post.

WOW factor

Many people consider SharePoint to be something that is only used within an organization. The fact is that it provides a very good platform for utilizing outside the organization as well. It provides a ‘standard’ platform on which developers can create some amazing sites. One of the best of these I believe is Ferrari.com.

Microsoft has now made a case study about Ferrari.com available which you find available at:

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000004987

On there you’ll also find a nice video about the reasons and results of the web site. I do however find it frustrating that Microsoft only makes this video available via Silverlight. The problem is you need to download and install Silverlight v3 to view the video. This typically requires a browser restart which isn’t smart in my books because it takes people away from the web site. It would be much better to also offer something on YouTube in standard AVI format. Here’s something similar from YouTube about the web site but it doesn’t talk about the fact it is built on SharePoint technology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lME2WIee-6s
I believe you should be making it easier for people to share your propaganda rather than requiring them to install additional browser components. How many ‘ordinary’ people out there are going to have SilverLight v3 already installed? Not many I reckon.

The point that I really do want to illustrate here is that many businesses are not only utilizing the functionality that SharePoint provides but also the platform it can provide to be easily extended and enhanced. There is plenty to recommend SharePoint already but when you see what people like Ferrari and those below are achieving you just gotta say WOW!

As I have always said, SharePoint is merely a tool – what you do with it is up to you.

Other examples of Internet facing SharePoint sites include:

 http://www.hawaiianair.com 

 http://www.carlsberggroup.com

Guide promotion

After some discussion with SMB Books we have agreed to make some special offers on my Windows SharePoint Operations Guide.

 

-> You can now purchase the product via a 3 instalment payment option. This means that it is only $99.99 over three consecutive months. This means that you’ll get access to the full Guide from your first payment and continue to do so for a whole 12 months upon making the remaining payments. Hopefully, this will make it a little easier for those who have been considering the guide but need to also keep an eye on their cashflow.

 

-> If you buy the Guide and any other product on the SMB Books site you’ll also receive a $20 discount off your total purchase price. There are plenty of other great reference books available on SMB Books covering all facets of technology and business. Unfortunately this offer can’t be used with any other offers (like the part payment mentioned above) and is a special offer unique to the Guide. When you make a purchase use the code CRANE09 at the checkout to take advantage of this offer.

 

-> When you buy the Guide you’ll also receive a free copy of my “Overcoming email frustrations for OUtlook” in PDF format. This is book that shows you 10 ways to overcome the most common frustrations people face when dealing with email.

 

The Windows SharePoint Operations Guide is now almost 1,500 pages in length and 4GB of information on the subscribers DVD and growing every month. Why spend time hunting around the Internet for information about Windows SharePoint? It is all here in one regularly updated location. From installing to maintaining and customizing the Guide contains it all and more so visit www.wssops.com or email me (director@ciaops.com) for more information.

 

Don’t forget all the other free documents I also have available on http://www.slideshare.com/directorcia about SharePoint and other topics.

The word

A while back I wrote a post about Windows SharePoint Services licensing. In there I said that I was still waiting on confirmation about Windows SharePoint running on Windows Foundation Server. Well now I have a definitive answer:

“there are no restrictions, we want a customer running Foundation to be able to use all products, simply not for customers with more than 15 users.”

Yeah! This makes things much clearer. So you can install Windows SharePoint on Windows Foundation Server but you must abide by the product’s normal licensing, which includes the limit of 15 user access.

Given the competitive pricing of Windows Foundation Server, this makes it a very good option to install as a second server in small networks to allow a stand alone installation of Windows SharePoint Server. Sure you don’t HAVE to use a second server but it certainly provides more flexibility and reliability for your installation in my opinion.

Change

One of messages that has come from the recent Microsoft Partner Conference is that the world is changing for Microsoft and resellers (as if you didn’t know!). The article “Microsoft rubs Web 2.0 noses in SharePoint cash pile” shows how Microsoft believes the world is changing and how its resellers should also.

“Microsoft’s business applications chief Stephen Elop on Monday told Microsoft’s overwhelmingly desktop-and-server-oriented partner army that nine out of 10 of their customers want to transition a portion of their IT to the cloud.”

Which I believe is true, though perhaps not to that extent now but it many eventually reach that level. Interestingly,

“Elop didn’t reveal the source of the data behind his claim, but the message was blunt.

“My business is changing. Your business must change as well,” Elop told Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.”

So the message appears clear from Microsoft that traditional server and desktop hardware is going to be a declining source of opportunity for all. You would also have to agree that the message is very similar from Google who have perhaps been at this cloud computing thing longer than Microsoft.

To ignore two of the largest players in the market saying that online is the place to be would surely be folly for anyone providing technology solutions. Personally, I agree with this premise in principal but I believe it still must be tempered by some ‘non-sales’ reality here but the end result is that change is certainly upon us. Nothing could perhaps illustrate that better than a recent example of my own.

I was called in by a prospect who were interested in Windows SharePoint v3 as means to improve their collaboration and productivity. They had just recently purchased a new server running SBS 2003 (their existing IT people seemed uncomfortable with the move to SBS 2008 which, as an aside, I have noticed to be quite common), so they already have their infrastructure in place. Now, how do they go about implementing Windows SharePoint v3?

Option 1 – On the existing infrastructure

They need to install Windows SharePoint v3 on their SBS 2003 server which requires a bit of customizing since it is SBS. They’d probably also find that the SBS box is already pretty well loaded (being SBS 2003 it has a 4GB RAM limit) so maybe installing SharePoint v3 on SBS is not a good idea. Maybe then they could purchase an additional server, which means more hardware and Windows Server licenses even before the installation commences.

You can see how hard this is becoming can’t you.

Option 2 – Hosted

While at their offices I set up a 30 day free trial of hosted SharePoint with a single login. They can immediately start using the product to get a feel. They have remote access, don’t have to worry about additional servers, software etc. After 30 days they can simply convert that trial into a per monthly cost with an unlimited amount of users.

How easy was that?

Sure there are issues around both services and advantages and disadvantages but look at it from the customer’s perspective. Which involves less pain? If they like SharePoint and want to start using it in their business which is going to give them a result faster? The winner is Option 2 – Hosted.

This online concept also applies to other applications like email and even desktop applications such as word processors and spreadsheets. In the end I think we have finally crossed the threshold where technology is simply part of our day, like electricity or the car. It has become so ingrained in our society that the less we have to think about it the better. Clearly, things will not change overnight but they are changing and those who fail to make the transition will get left behind. If the business model and focus of players like Microsoft is changing then resellers need to start making similar adjustments. Now is the time to start making those adjustments in your own time rather than having little option or opportunity down the track.

Like it or not, change is here.