Content Management Matters ™

Remember those guys who figured out how to hack Vista to allow you to run your SharePoint environment directly on the desktop and not within a vm? Well they are hanging out at Microsoft TECH-ED NORTH AMERICA 2008 this week and they have a product announcement that may interest many SharePoint developers.

It's called Bamboo MashPoint and it's a free data integration platform for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Note that important point -- it's for WSS3.0 which means you can start developing and integration enterprise applications into WSS without the need of MOSS and the Business Data Catalog.

Microsoft has some pretty ingenious partners out there. One that is recently in the news for a really beneficial "hack" (their words), is Bamboo Solutions, a provider of SharePoint Web Parts. They have developed a way to help simplify development of SharePoint solutions called SharePoint on Vista. This solution enables developers who have Vista desktop to do SharePoint development outside the server environment.

AvePoint, an enterprise-strength data protection and management provider for Microsoft SharePoint, has released the Documentum eRoom migration software, DocAve 4.5, as part of its DocAve Software Platform for SharePoint. DocAve 4.5 eRoom Migrator eases the process of content and metadata migration from Documentum eRoom into MOSS 2007 ensuring a quick and cost-effective platform adoption.

It's officially out. Ooh! Ooh! I'm just dizzy with excitement. Microsoft has released the first SharePoint WSS 3.0 / MOSS 2007 Service Pack. It's all over the web -- and that's right, we've joined the jabbering masses!

At the Enterprise Search Summit in San Jose, Microsoft unveiled it's newest Search product - Microsoft Search Server 2008. Right along with the full version, they have offered a free version called Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express.

Do you want to know how to use SharePoint but lack a degree in computer science? Training and consulting provider SharePoint Solutions has just the thing for you! The second annual SharePoint Information Worker Conference is to be held Feb 4-6, 2008 in Nashville, TN and is 100% non-technical.

By way of the Windows Server team blog Microsoft have announced that Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and beyond will no longer be bundled with the Windows Server. Instead, it will be offered as a separate -- and still free -- download, which customers must take the extra step to acquire.

The move is a significant one; but the implications are not so clear.

French company Gatweb has released the first version of their Sharepoint (MOSS) 2007 Inspector product -- a free tool for exploring and tweaking your SharePoint 2007 servers. It supports both Windows SharePoint Services v3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

We previously posted a tip sheet on Getting Started with SharePoint WebParts. Kindly supporting us in these endeavors, our dear friends over at MSDN have published a chapter from the book Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Inside Out.

Mobius Management Systems, Inc., a leading content management vendor, today announced ViewDirect RM for SharePoint 4.6.

ViewDirect RM for SharePoint is a complete records management solution for of Microsoft SharePoint Portal and Windows SharePoint Services and is based on technologies gained in Mobius' eManage acquisition, in April of this year.

The latest release enables organizations to index, link, store, search, access and manage records stored in SharePoint over the complete lifecycle, and destroy them in a timely manner, thus enabling compliance with regulatory requirements and corporate retention and disposition policies.

These capabilities are achieved through a "touchless" approach that allows ViewDirect RM to manage the record lifecycle while the records remain in the SharePoint SQL repository.

[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.