Hello out there. I thought I'd take a minute to introduce myself to add to the Bio that is available on this page. Basically I've been in the industry for a couple of decades and have worn a lot of different hats. I started off in sales, in the "roaring 90s" and gradually moved in a technical direction (primarily because I had this need to understand what I was selling (strange, I know)) and found myself managing multiple technology implementation projects (NetWare, NT, AD, Exchange, etc.).
Then SharePoint came along and I quickly found it to be an excellent project management tool. Finally I could keep all the project "stuff" in one place, and no one could come up with the lame excuse "I couldn't find the document" or I don't know the due dates (OK, they still did, but I had a good retort: "It's in SharePoint!"). My boss, Rand Morimoto, had been a prolific writer for McGraw Hill and Sams Publishing, and approached me about writing a SharePoint 2003 book. I'll avoid clichés here about history, but after 8 months of struggling with beta software and learning the product from every angle, I produced my third of the SharePoint 2003 Unleashed book. Clients started to adopt the product which kept me busy. I worked on all sorts of different projects from 10 person implementations, to 5000 user environments, and spent over a year as the SharePoint admin for a Fortune 1000 company.
Now SharePoint 2007 is a true Microsoft third generation product, in that it now "gets it right." Besides filling in many of the blanks from the 2003 product line, it adds dozens of new features, scales better, is more manageable, and guess what - it is more complicated. That being said, in this blog I'll work on sharing tips about the issues that I run into on a daily basis with clients who are implementing SP 2007, and limitations in the product that are worth giving a "heads up" on. Feel free to make requests if you're running into specific problems and I'll do my best to answer them.
Regards,
Colin
The Leader in Network Knowledge
What's the future of SharePoint
Colin,
As users think beyond SharePoint as a place for teamspaces or documents storage can you give IT pros some insight about the possibilities around this server. It seems like it is going to be a hub, a foundation for bigger and better things. Knowing what some of those things are may help with long range planning.
Hard question to answer in a
Hard question to answer in a short amount of time...every client I work with has slightly different needs and strategies for using SP 2007.
A basic distinction I like to make is between using the "free" version called Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the version you need to pay for: SharePoint Server 2007 (aka "MOSS" but Microsoft doesn't like this name). Confusing naming structure, but basically WSS offers much of the basic functionality that is extended by SP Server 2007. I recommend that companies experiment with WSS 3.0 and if it works out for them to implement SP Server 2007. A great tool to reference can be found at the following link: http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/d/c/1dc632e8-71e1-466f-8a2f-c940f1438e0a/SharePointProductsComparison.xls. This spreadsheet gives an overview of how WSS and SP Server 2007 compare.
Thx
Colin
Great to have you blogging!
Hey Colin, GREAT to see you're blogging on NetworkWorld, looking forward to getting your input and contribution! I'll visit frequently!
Rand
Nice blog!
Having intimately witnessed all of your efforts to learn, write about and implement Sharepoint in various situations, I have to say that I am and will forever be deeply impressed by you both as a professional and a person! LDB