What is SharePoint 2010 (Part-1)

Names are important and in some cases that goes for software too.

For starters, the name SharePoint is a solid clue — this software product is first about sharing information and secondly about finding and collaborating on information at a specific place. SharePoint 2010 is the business Collaboration platform for the Enterprise and the web that enables you to connect and empower people through an integrated set of rich features.

The Six Pillars of SharePoint, New and Old

Microsoft has released several generations of SharePoint, but you only need to be concerned with SharePoint 2007, which has been around for roughly 3 years now, and SharePoint 2010, which was officially released in May 2010.

In the pie diagrams below you see that Microsoft divided both SharePoint 2007 and 2010 into 6 different core functional areas, and that these core concepts have evolved from the 2007 to the 2010 version.

SharePoint 2007 and 2010 — Core Functional Area Comparison

In SharePoint 2007, the six functional areas include:
1.      Collaboration
2.      Portal
3.      Search
4.      Content management
5.      Business forms
6.      Business intelligence

This release of the product included the first forays into both web content management and connectivity with back-end business systems. However, for the majority of users, SharePoint 2007 was really used as a glorified file sharing service, with a bit of collaboration added on.

SharePoint 2010 aims to change this — to really move towards Microsoft's dream of SharePoint as an enterprise platform for many different information applications and information worker uses.

The 2010 release offers a number of improvements over the 2007 product, including user interface improvements, greater social capabilities, deeper business intelligence, advanced records and document management and better integration with with other systems.

SharePoint 2010: An Ambitious Enterprise Platform

In the following six sections I quickly walk you through the key parts of SharePoint 2010. As you read on, keep in mind that customers are in no way obliged to use all of these things. Some companies will use five or six of the core areas, some might only use one.

Regardless, to understand what SharePoint really is, you need to understand the highly ambitious agenda Microsoft has for the product. It is this: To become the single point for all information aggregation, search and collaboration in your organization.

While there have been a number of improvements related to web content management (WCM) in SharePoint 2010, Microsoft has stated that they believe SharePoint is a good platform to support your WCM needs, whether it's for an intranet, extranet or an Internet.

In short, SharePoint 2010 comes with native Web CMS functionality. Regardless of how you use SharePoint, you will likely use some of this functionality, at least for internal collaboration websites. Broader uses could include running your entire intranet on SharePoint, or running your public-facing website(s) on SharePoint.

Tom Resing, a Microsoft Certified Master in SharePoint, had this to say about SharePoint 2010:

"SharePoint is software from Microsoft designed to make publishing on the web as easy as using Word, Excel, Access + PowerPoint."

He went on to say that he's proving it by putting his own website on SharePoint as part of the "SharePoint WCM revolution".

The 2010 release does bring a number of WCM improvements:

·         A more intuitive content authoring/editing experience, with a similar look and feel to MS Office

·         Better support for websites that need to be available in multiple languages

·         Better organizing and categorizing of content

·         Compliance with Web Standards like XHTML and WCAG 2.0 AA to ensure a wider range of users and devices can view your website

·         Improved search, particularly via FAST Search, including more relevant results and more ways to view the results

·         Integration of Web Analytics to see how your website is performing

·         Personalization via Audience targeting

·         Cross browser Support — view your site on most of the popular browsers today