Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Technologies

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2007 Microsoft Office System

1.1 Introducing the 2007 Microsoft Office System

And so to our third book that has the word “SharePoint” in its title. Our first

dealt solely with the product called Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001

(SPS 2001). In the introduction to the second book, we explained how we

were not going to be discussing merely Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal

Server 2003 (SPS 2003) but also the wider focus of Microsoft SharePoint

Products and Technologies—the umbrella name for those offerings from

Microsoft that facilitate collaboration. That book essentially focused on two

products—Windows SharePoint Services (WSS 2.0) and SPS 2003, with

WSS V2.0 being the foundation upon which SPS 2003 was built.

So where are we now? You will still hear the phrase “Microsoft Share-

Point Products and Technologies,” and there are still multiple products that

fit under this name, but more and more the industry just refers to the whole

gamut as “SharePoint,” clarifying individual products as and when required.

This book, however, will primarily focus on Windows SharePoint Services

V3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and complementary offer-

ings such as SharePoint Designer 2007. I guess you’d think that this time we

are merely talking about an update to the products we covered in our second

book? But take a closer look at the product names…notice anything missing?

Hopefully you’ve noted that the word “Portal” no longer appears! Why

not? The focus of SharePoint has expanded significantly in the interim years

to meet the many different ways in which people communicate and collabo-

rate, and much more than a portal is required to meet ever-changing business

requirements. Today, SharePoint targets much more than just collaboration

between groups of people. Rather, SharePoint targets connecting people, pro-

cess, and information across organizational boundaries—a theme that not

only permeates the 2007 Microsoft Office System but other Wave 12 prod-

ucts, such as Exchange Server 2007 and the recently released Office Commu-

nications Server 2007. The term “Wave 12” was used during development of

2 1.1 Introducing the 2007 Microsoft Office System

these products, as their internal development version was 12 and they were

all due to hit the market around the same time.

As mentioned, the main focus of this book is Windows SharePoint Ser-

vices V3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. You will hear and

read numerous terms in the industry that describe these products, so to avoid

any ambiguity, we will use the following naming conventions:

1. WSS 3.0 will refer to Windows SharePoint Services V3.0. In

those instances when we need to distinguish between this and the

previous version, we will explicitly say WSS 2.0.

2. MOSS, SharePoint Server 2007 and SharePoint 2007 will all be

used to explicitly refer to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

2007. In those instances where we need to refer to the previous

version(s), we will use SPS 2003 and SPS 2001.

3. SharePoint will be used in those instances where the product we

are talking about is irrelevant, i.e., the feature will generally be in

both products or not be product specific at all. In other words,

SharePoint will essentially refer to the global term SharePoint

Products and Technologies.

SharePoint Server 2007 is part of the 2007 Microsoft Office System—a

suite of desktop and server products designed to work together and stream-

line the way people work. A discussion on SharePoint would not be complete

without considering the complementary products in the suite. For example,

Outlook 2007 can act as a smart client to SharePoint providing both read

and write access to information held in SharePoint lists. Although WSS 3.0 is

not technically part of the 2007 Microsoft Office, since it is engineered

under the Windows product group, it is the platform upon which SharePoint

Server 2007 is built and so is a fundamental part of any SharePoint solution.

The products that are currently available within the 2007 Microsoft Office

System are as follows (more details can be found online at

www.microsoft.com/office):

Desktop Programs

Access

Accounting

Communicator

Excel

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