What is SharePoint?

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What is SharePoint?

A question which still comes up from time to time, even though the product(s) have been around now for some time! I thought I would re-post this to help those new to the SharePoint world….:-)

Microsoft® SharePoint® is an enterprise information platform that can be configured to host Intranets, Extranets and more recently Internet sites.  Split into two separate but interrelated products:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (referred to as MOSS)

The main components of SharePoint 2007 are collaboration, portals, enterprise search, enterprise content management, business process and forms, and business intelligence.

Windows SharePoint Services (referred to as WSS)

The main components of WSS are document management, lightweight content management, search, task management and other lists, shared calendars, document workspaces, meeting sub-sites, surveys and discussion board features allowing people & teams to connect and collaborate. 

Original product was release by Microsoft in 2001 and has since had two additional releases in 2003 and more recently in 2007.

An enterprise portal is typically composed of both MOSS and WSS. WSS is typically used by small teams, projects and smaller companies.  MOSS is designed for individuals, teams and projects within a medium to large company wide enterprise portals.

SharePoint® is Microsoft’s fastest selling product aimed at providing a rich platform to manage an organisation’s documents and other information that is historically held in disparate storage such as file shares,email servers and other areas such as those stored with Lotus Notes databases. SharePoint simplifies collaboration and increases efficiency in the workplace by providing a single repository, utilising shared workspaces for users to coordinate schedules, organise documents, collaborate on projects and share information, making the creation, storage and retrieval  easier, more effective and more convenient.