Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: New capabilities to boost knowledge sharing and collaboration
Microsoft soon will release the highly anticipated Office SharePoint Server 2007, featuring a host of new benefits for content-rich organizations. West Monroe Partners provides a preview for both current and prospective SharePoint customers.
Microsoft is preparing to release Office SharePoint Server 2007 later this year amid strong interest from current and prospective users, alike. Office SharePoint Server 2007, now part of the Microsoft Office suite, combines powerful content management capabilities with a familiar user experience to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration.
SharePoint facilitates the way people find, organize, and share information by establishing intranet, extranet, Web-based applications, or public websites that manage content and business processes. Organizations of all types have used SharePoint successfully to manage an array of vital business processes -- from processing insurance claims, to prioritizing and tracking IT governance initiatives, to managing the work of a global team, to consolidating sales and marketing data.
Should we upgrade?
The impending release has prompted many questions from current SharePoint users: Should we upgrade? How much will it cost? What will we gain?
Unlike its predecessor, Office SharePoint Server 2007 is fully integrated with the Microsoft® Office suite of products, providing users with a simple, familiar experience and other capabilities that are expected to have a significant impact on the quality and quantity of intranet use:
- A single platform for managing intranet, extranet, portal, and Web-based applications across the country.
- A faster, more cost-effective way to create and deploy content-rich sites.
- Functions that facilitate common business processes, such as managing reviews and approvals.
- Fine-grain control over security settings, storage policies, auditing procedures, and document expiration.
- Capabilities for creating dashboards and dynamic reports.
- Synchronization with Outlook 2007, enabling users to share team tasks and calendars.
These are just a few of the potential benefits.
The most significant change is tight integration with Microsoft desktop and e-mail applications and third-party Web browsers -- a change that will simplify the steps that users take to share content among these applications. For example, the document information panel in Microsoft Word will make it easy for a user to add metadata and keywords to a Word document to facilitate future intranet searches. And, new functionality will enable a user to work with a document offline and easily synchronize her changes with SharePoint when she's done.
Time for a closer look.
Early adopters already are using the Beta version of Office SharePoint Server 2007 to develop intranet and portal applications. Microsoft will release it in November to companies with volume license agreements, and it will be publicly available in January.
As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, West Monroe Partners has been able to work with Office SharePoint Server 2007 and explore its benefits in a development environment.
Whether your organization uses SharePoint and is contemplating an upgrade or you are looking for a more effective way to leverage and share information across your enterprise, West Monroe Partners can provide a preview, now, of the capabilities and potential of Office SharePoint Server 2007.
West Monroe Partners helps clients harness enterprise content and knowledge and improve collaboration through the use of intranets, portals, and other similar applications. For more information or for a demonstration of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, please contact
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Office SharePoint Server 2007 enables users to share team tasks and calendars.
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