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MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT
Today, Microsoft SharePoint is a platform. More than a Portal, and more than a solution, it is actually now best regarded as being a platform.
It is the common centrepiece that links together almost every product in the Microsoft range today.
Initially in 2001 when it was released in v1 guise, it was a product aimed at delivering Knowledge Management solutions. Called SharePoint Server 2001 and Microsoft Team Services, it was built on the Web store, and used the same “back end” that Outlook used.
From here it morphed and developed into a suite of Portal products (Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and Windows SharePoint Services 2.0), and the back-end moved to SQL Server. This provided a dramatically improved architecture, and unprecedented flexibility and access to data. SharePoint got serious.
Then, in 2007, the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server suite, with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, was released to the market. The “killer app” had arrived. No longer was it hobbled by idiosyncrasies that limited its potential. Through a complete re-design, Microsoft had created a platform that really illustrated what the term “seamless integration” was supposed to mean. With SQL Server in the back-end, data transparency became a reality. Web Parts were able to be much more easily written (Web Parts are “chunks” of code that can be embedded into SharePoint pages to translate data for example, or provide specialised features not available “out of the box” with SharePoint). The look and feel could be heavily customised, and all of a sudden, SharePoint had become the "hub" - the common platform that all Microsoft products could redily communicate through.
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Why SharePoint?
Readers looking for a solution and considering Microsoft SharePoint will know that there are other competitive products in the market. SoPac Solutions have invested heavily in SharePoint over the years for many reasons, but today probably the most important ones are:
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A familiar interface. Users can easily use SharePoint solutions, because almost all users have used a Microsoft product of some description before. Thus, the learning curve is extremely shallow for users. The same cannot be said for competing products which, although they might be good, still require users to become accustomed to the way they work. |
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Whatever you may think of Microsoft, at the time of writing they essentially “own the Desktop”. It is still true that the majority of machines in use today run Windows / Vista. That being the case, you could almost say that Microsoft have an “unfair advantage” with their products. That is, no-one knows how to write a better product to fit within the Windows/Vista platform than Microsoft. |
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Microsoft products and solutions have a massive support base. There is never a shortage of information available, and again, this is not true of competing products. Irrespective of the product, SoPac Solutions are yet to see a competitive solution to SharePoint that has even a fraction of the information available. |
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There are many, many other reasons why SoPac Solutions back SharePoint so strongly, and this includes the incredible depth and breadth of features available (for more information, the reader is encouraged to visit the Microsoft site at www.microsoft.com/sharepoint). From a technical point of view, it has matured to a truly robust, scalable, stable platform that we believe all organisations should be considering as the centre-point of their electronic information management systems. For things like: |
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An advanced, highly functional Intranet |
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A flexible and powerful Extranet |
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An Internet web site |
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And a whole host of other applications |
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Why build from "scratch?"
In the past, many projects started with the creation of a whole environment. The whole thing was written from start to finish in .NET, Java, C++ or a host of other languages. Today, a significant percentage of the functionality required by almost any application wil benefit from starting with a SharePoint platform, and building on that. Doing this means:
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You get a “leg up” into a solution, because you start with a host of features already pre-written. No matter how you look at it, it is cheaper to buy these in the SharePoint platform than it is to “scratch build” them |
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It is a supported platform, reducing your reliance on the resources who created the solution, whether they be internal resources or external parties/3rd parties |
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You reduce the risk of your project, since the more code you write, the more risk you introduce. Starting with SharePoint means you get 20, 30, 40, 50% or more of your solution straight away, and you develop the rest. |
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Once again, you have a familiar interface. Scratch built systems are often disadvantaged by a different user interface, even if some users may perceive it to be “better”, simply because it is different and requires specialised training. Today, it is all about simplification and consistency. |
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We hope that by browsing through our site you get an idea of the sort of work we do, and why we so strongly support the SharePoint platform as a core part of our business.
We also hope you get to see the enormous depth of skill we have retained. Building SharePoint solutions is far more than installing the product – it’s everything after that, and this is what SoPac Solutions specialise in.
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