Microsoft Previews SharePoint Server 2010

At Microsoft Corp.’s SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the public beta of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010 will become available in November, and revealed some of the new SharePoint Server 2010 capabilities for the first time.

            “By taming the overflow of information across systems and technologies, SharePoint enables organizations to thrive,” Ballmer said. “SharePoint 2010 is the biggest and most important release of SharePoint to date. When paired with Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 will transform efficiency by connecting workers across a single collaboration platform for business.”

            SharePoint Server is one of the fastest-growing products in Microsoft’s history, with over $1.3 billion in revenue, representing over a 20% growth over the past year. According to IDC, Microsoft attained a significant share of the collaborative content workspace market in 2008, and had the highest growth rate among top vendors with its Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.¹

            During his keynote address, Ballmer talked broadly about SharePoint Server as a business collaboration platform and highlighted three key areas. One was how organizations can respond quickly to business needs with an improved developer platform that makes it easier to build rich content and collaboration applications. Another topic was the enhanced Internet site capabilities that help businesses drive revenue and retain customers on a single platform. The third was the choice and flexibility between on-premises and cloud solutions. At the event, Microsoft showcased the breadth of SharePoint Server 2010 that ranges from wikis to workflows, while Ballmer’s keynote address highlighted features and capabilities such as:

• A new ribbon user interface that makes users more productive;
• Deep Office integration through social tagging, backstage integration and document life-cycle management;
• Built-in support for rich media such as video, audio and Silverlight;
• New Web content management features with built-in accessibility;
• New SharePoint tools in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010;
• Excel Services and InfoPath Forms Services in SharePoint Online;
• Business Connectivity Services;
• One-click page layout; and
• Multilingual support.

            Microsoft SharePoint 2010 is part of the next wave of Microsoft Office-related products, which includes Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Visio 2010, that are designed to give people the best productivity experience across PCs, phones and browsers.

www.microsoft.com

 (1) Source: IDC: “Worldwide Collaborative Content Workspace 2009-2013 Forecast and 2008 Vendor Shares: A Case of Coalescing Submarkets,” Doc #219885 September 2009.

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