SharePoint Portal Review

By Brice Dunwoodie (@cmswire) Jun 11, 2004 Comments

1 comment

[Editor's Note: For information on SharePoint (MOSS) 2007, please tune into these articles: SharePoint 2007 Review - Six Pillars of MOSS, Getting Started with SharePoint (MOSS) 2007, and Analyst Firm Reviews SharePoint (MOSS) 2007.]

SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) are getting more and more attention of late. One reason for this is pricing. Another reason is SharePoint's relative ease of use, as compared to the WebSpheres, Vignettes, and Plumbtrees of the world.

What's also been coming up more and more is the pressure that .NET standardization is having on company's IT departments. Identifying the obvious synergies between .NET, SharePoint, Microsoft Content Management Server, and Microsoft Commerce Server is making more than a few decision makers salivate.

So if you're one of those who are suddenly finding themselves looking for practical info on SharePoint, here's one more quick yet worthwhile read.

Rodney Landrum, writing for www.mcpmag.com has recently published a brief SharePoint Portal review. His focus was on initial configuration and document library population. It not what I'd call a rigorous review, but its worth a scan.

Some highlights are:

Quick to install with MSDE, a bit time consuming with a SQL Server backend
Installation location is fairly flexible
Administration can happen at site or top level
Indexing service can source both internal SPS resources or remote, non-SPS resources
Document library alerts are great (I've personally wished for broader alert functionality, but they are nice to have)
Some folks will struggle with the information management concepts