News

• Microsoft extends app building to the Cloud

  Microsoft on Tuesday will preview a cloud-based application build service and improvements to its Visual Studio IDE to make it easier to build SharePoint programs.

• U.K. survey: SharePoint users freely ignore security measures

  Copying documents out of Microsoft SharePoint to less secure media such as email and thumb drives is common among users of the collaboration platform, at least in the U.K.

• Marist College unifies admin, moves to SharePoint

  The need to move from a siloed environment to a unified administrative system drove Michael Plenty, ICT manager at Marist College in Canberra, to deploy SharePoint in a matter of months.

• Windows Small Business Server 2011 shines

  Many small businesses have relied on Microsoft's Small Business Server (SBS) family of servers to get their feet wet with their first server and network. Introduced back in 1997 as BackOffice Small Business Server 4.0, SBS has matured into a tightly integrated platform of the most important services a small company needs: file and printer functions, email, calendar and contact sharing, and document collaboration. While it is limited in the maximum number of concurrent user connections, SBS doesn't shirk core services, providing enterprise-grade features at a price point almost every small business can afford.

• SharePoint has its limits

  SharePoint came about as an effort to bring Microsoft Offices usability to tools for electronic collaboration. Jeff Teper, the Microsoft vice president in charge of SharePoint development, says the company saw an opportunity with users who wanted to share their files but didn't need a heavyweight content management system such as EMC's Documentum. SharePoint 2010 integrates Microsoft's PerformancePoint business intelligence tools and its advanced search engine, called Fast, as well as strengthens SharePoint as a development platform.

• Seven social SharePoint apps built in a week

  Microsoft released the public beta of SharePoint 2010 in November. Its claim to fame is its support of rapid app development. SharePoint has become one of Microsoft's most insanely popular products and Microsoft would like to see the 2010 version become the de facto platform for custom business social apps.

• SharePoint 2010 overkill for some, Forrester says

  Despite platform improvements coming in Microsoft's SharePoint 2010 server, the software is likely to be overkill for users seeking to meet isolated and specific requirements, according to a study by Forrester Research.

• Is SharePoint unstoppable, or mostly smoke and mirrors?

  Guessing what eye-popping growth figures Microsoft will trumpet for its popular portal and collaboration app, SharePoint, has become an annual parlor game for fans and detractors alike.

• Google set to take on collaboration giants

  Signaling an intent to compete with giants in the collaboration software space, Google is introducing an API to extend the Google Sites collaborative content development tool, featuring a capability to migrate files from workspace applications such as Microsoft SharePoint and Lotus Notes to Sites.

• SharePoint search bolstered with MetaVis tools

  MetaVis Technologies Monday released a set of tools to classify and organize data to help users improve the search capabilities in Microsoft's SharePoint Server.

• Want to get SharePoint but stay on Lotus Notes? Here's how

  Microsoft's SharePoint collaboration server software is, by many accounts, a huge hit, providing that seemingly irresistible formula of solid technology for free or at a low price.

• Mainsoft links IBM Jazz, Microsoft SharePoint

  Mainsoft is linking users of IBM's Jazz platform for ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) to users of Microsoft's SharePoint platform for collaboration and business processes.

• Hosted Exchange, SharePoint now widely on sale

  In five years, Microsoft expects half of all enterprise employees with e-mail to use a combined online and premises-based system like the company's Exchange Online, an executive said Monday at a launch event for that software and the SharePoint Online hosted collaboration application.

• Microsoft to launch online SharePoint, Exchange on Monday

  Microsoft on Monday will release the first of several of its hosted business-productivity services.