Many companies are now choosing to embrace the wonder of Microsoft SharePoint, we at Gardners certainly have. SharePoint gives the ability to have document management in a nice looking Web Browser based user interface which allows documents to be edited in Microsoft Office. With the added ability to use Workflows to automate common business tasks its no wonder why SharePoint 2007 is a hot seller.

New Features

In an attempt to unify all MS product user interfaces the well known icon based ribbon toolbar is being developed for the SP2010 web interface. From here users can perform common SP tasks such as checked in and out documents, emailing on links to locations etc etc.

Site customisation is going to be a big part of SP2010, for those of you not keen on the icon ribbon toolbar then you can simply turn it off or make your own. Customising the look and feel of the web interface is also easier than the current SharePoint designer setup now. The site can be edited by the owner as if the page was a typical MS Office document.

For those of you already using some of the more advanced features of SharePoint no doubt you would have heard of the “Business Data Catalogue”. In SP2010 this is renamed to “Business Connectivity Services” and gives users the ability to manipulate data in business databases. The end result of this is that users have the ability to read, write, update and delete records in databases (such as SQL) from MS Office documents and InfoPath forms.

-this sounds a lot easier than using the Web Services which are available now.

Administration

Management of SharePoint is going to get easier with a whole host of new admin tools to monitor server performance, farm status, fix common problems and view usage stats.

MS have announced also that Firefox 3.x, Safari and IE (all versions over 6.0) will be supported.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218500775&subSection=News

Specs

In an attempt to aid budgeting and planning the preliminary server specs have already been released:

64 bit architecture only (there is no 32-bit version)

MS Windows Server 2008 or MS Windows Server 2008 R2

SQL Server 2005 / 2008 (64-bit only)

What if I Want to Upgrade?

1. Start by ensuring new hardware is 64-bit.  Deploying 64-bit is our current best practice recommendation for SharePoint 2007.
2. Deploy Service Pack 2 and take a good look at the SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Checker that’s shipped as part of the update.  The Upgrade Checker will scan your SharePoint Server 2007 deployment for many issues that could affect a future upgrade to SharePoint 2010.
3. Get to know Windows Server 2008 with SharePoint 2007, this post is a great starting point.
4. Consider your desktop browser strategy if you have large population of Internet Explorer 6 users.
5. Continue to follow the Best Practices guidance for SharePoint Server 2007.
6. Keep an eye on this blog for updates and more details in the coming months.

Below are a few common Q&A’s (which we’ll add to as required)

Advantages of 64-bit hardware and software (Office SharePoint Server 2007)

Migrate an existing server farm to a 64-bit environment (Office SharePoint Server 2007)

We’ll keep you posted on more information as it is announced