SharePoint?

I'm back from training, and I have seen the light. Jerry asked the other day, “Has anyone else used Sharepoint Services yet?” and was looking for some feedback, and I think I've got the skinny.

SharePoint is not just one thing, and it's not even the same thing all of the time. Currently SharePoint is 2 things:

1. Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 (WSS)
2. SharePoint Portal Server 2.0 (SPS)

And they are both a bit different than v1.0, which was very different than Team SharePoint YadaYada or whatever it was called before that. WSS 1.0 stored it's bits in file shares and in Exchange, and SPS 1.0 used SQL Server. SPS 2.0 still uses SQL server, but now so does WSS, although WSS can use MSDE instead. Therefore WSS is licensed along side of Windows 2003, and with a MSDE implantation doesn't cost anything above the server OS.

What is WSS? It's more than a place to put documents, it's a place to put documents, event details, lists of stuff, conversations, surveys, etc. as well as a web GUI that lets you access all of these bits. And it's all integrated into Office 2003. You can schedule a meeting in Outlook, and create a “workspace” for that meeting in WSS. This allows you to store documents for review, and revision as well as other collaboration information all in one place, totally dedicated to your meeting. You can pull in users from ActiveDirectory and give each their own “MySite” for storing and sharing documents, thoughts, conversations, etc. You can customize the site with your own templates, or using an SDK make custom widgety things that WSS calls “Web Parts”. In a nutshell it is “Intranet in a box” and mostly free. Add on a SQL license and you can use free text searching.

But then, you may ask, what the heck is SharePoint Portal? SPS allows you to much easier create WSS sites, much easier integrate with AD, search across all of these sites, and aggregate data from across sites into sites setup for aggregation purposes. It rounds out the solution making it the only Intranet that many companies might need. In addition you can use other MS servers like Project Server that integrate right into WSS and create a site for each project on the server.

Or, you can boot up VisualStudio.NET and use the WSS services without using their GUI, or use part of their GUI and create your own Web Parts, and get 1/2 of your solution done up front (if your solution involves collaboration and communication).