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Archive for the ‘Microsoft SharePoint Development Services’ Category

Microsoft BPOS Targets Google Apps, Agressively Cuts Exchange Online and SharePoint Online Price

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Microsoft has agressively cut its per user per month list price for Exchange Online and SharePoint services and cut by 33 percent the price of its Business Productivity Online Services suite of online productivity applications.

The pricing of Microsoft Exchange Online from US $10 per user per month to US $5 for Exchange Online is significant because it brings Microsoft Exchange Online much closer to the price Google charges for its Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) suite that is anchored by Gmail product.

In addition to the price change, Microsoft said allowable mailbox sizes would go from 5GB to 25GB, a move that ups Microsoft’s stake “bottomless” inbox war with other online email providers.

The pricing for Microsoft Sharepoint Online will now cost US $5.25 per from US $7.25 per user per month.

Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) was previously priced at US $15 per user and will now be priced at US $10 per user. This is a very agressive move from Microsoft to further build on the momentum it has gotten from the launch of its Microsoft Online Services offering which entirely driven and demanded by Microsoft clients.

To sign up for a 30 day risk free trial please visit http://www.ishir.com/ishir-microsoft-online-services-bpos-request-free-trial-form.htm

To learn about the services please visit http://www.ishir.com/microsoft-business-productivity-online-suite.htm

Microsoft Unveils New Mission – SharePoint Server 2010

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a product installed on one or more servers that provides the basis for a series of solutions. These solutions, if correctly designed and implemented, help information workers to meet business requirements. Office SharePoint Server 2007 combine several technologies and features that have so far only been offered as separate products in one highly scalable, highly available offering. This combination of technologies has proven very successful, and SharePoint Server 2007 has become one of the most popular offerings in the knowledge support and collaboration markets.

We can summarize the mission of the SharePoint Server 2007 as this: SharePoint technologies are intended to organize the content in your environment and then present that content so it is relevant, and allows users to interact with the content in a dynamic and collaborative manner. It is not designed to meet a specific business objective, but to provide a platform of functionality that users request for many different business reasons. Now, as with all mission statements, this one is very general. To meet this mission, Microsoft launched the public beta of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 which will be available in November, and it will feature an improved developer platform that makes it easier to build rich content and collaboration applications to meet businesses’ needs.

SharePoint Server 2010 will also have enhanced website capabilities that help businesses drive revenue and retain customers on a single platform, according to Microsoft’s announcement at its SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. Additionally, it will feature the choice of on-premises and cloud solutions, giving organizations the flexibility to scale their applications.

SharePoint 2010 is the biggest and most important release of SharePoint to date. When paired with Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 will transform efficiency by connecting workers across a single collaboration platform for business.”

At the SharePoint Conference, Microsoft showcased the breadth of SharePoint Server 2010, which ranges from wikis to work flows. SharePoint makes it easier to provide enterprise portal solution and  build dynamic websites with its built-in support for rich media such as video, audio and Silverlight. Its new ribbon-based user interface helps end users customize their SharePoint sites easily and be more productive. Also, new web content management features offer built-in accessibility through Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, multilingual support and one-click page layout that let anyone access SharePoint Server sites.

New SharePoint tools in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 give developers more tools, as well as rich APIs and support for Silverlight, representational state transfer (or REST) and Language-Integrated Query (or LINQ), to help developers rapidly build applications on the SharePoint platform. Business Connectivity Services allow developers to connect capabilities to line-of-business data or web services in SharePoint Server and the Office client.

There are also enterprise features such as Excel Services and InfoPath Forms Services, which make it simple to use, share, secure and manage interactive forms across an organization.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 is part of the next wave of Microsoft Office-related products, which includes Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Visio 2010, that are designed to give people the best productivity experience across PCs, phones and browsers. The public betas of SharePoint Server 2010, Office 2010, Project 2010 and Visio 2010 will be available in November 2009, and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 will be available in the first half of 2010.

Developing Microsoft Sharepoint Applications

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

The Microsoft SharePoint Applications helps architects and developers design, build and customize SharePoint applications that are both flexible and scalable.

SharePoint is a collaborative portal application allowing dashboard-style application components to be composited through the one interface. Often these component interfaces, otherwise known as portlets, are front pages into legacy applications. While users may initiate access to these applications through SharePoint, they are typically driven to the source application. Authentication and identity management are the hidden issues here. You can tailor SharePoint Web Services to fit your organizational needs. You learn to create and enhance new site functionality with hosted SharePoint Features. You also create sophisticated interconnected Web Parts that users can easily integrate with existing Solutions.

The goal of SharePoint portal application and SharePoint portal server is to help customers understand how to develop large scale, content-driven SharePoint applications that extend the value of existing line of business systems.  It essentially focuses on three primary objectives:

  • Large Scale - Show customers how to build a large scale SharePoint application.  This includes guidance on building in the manageability, configuration, migration , integration and performance expected from large scale applications.
  • Content Driven – More advanced SharePoint applications often include many sites and combine custom coded logic with created content.  The guidance demonstrates areas like custom navigation and publishing, composing web parts with published information, and managing a consistent UI.
  • Extend LOB Systems – Customizing SharePoint can aggregate and extend information from Line of Business systems to end users, enhancing structured business process with informal processes through collaboration.  The guidance shows how to integrate security considerations into business services, and demonstrate how to create collaborative sites that help manage business events like incident escalations and order exceptions.

If you are interested in the sharepoint training, development of Applications using Microsoft Sharepoint Services, contact Ishir Infotech, Microsoft Certified Gold Partner and reputed SharePoint Experts and Consultants.

SharePoint Online Standard Capabilities

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

SharePoint Online is offered as a collaboration and communications tool for organization’s Intranets. It offers the following types of functionality.

  • Collaboration
  • Portals
  • Search
  • Content Management
  • Business Process and Forms

In the standard version, we do not get all the functionality that we would if we implemented our own version of SharePoint on premise or if we subscribed to the Dedicated Version. Here’s a look at what we get and don’t get.

Collaboration  -

What we get:

  • Six default site templates (wiki, blog, team site, document workspace, blank, basic meeting) Surveys
  • People and Groups
  • Calendars
  • Issue Tracking
  • Document Collaboration
  • Site Admin templates

What we don’t get:

  • Presence awareness
  • social networking
  • Templates (all meeting templates except basic)
  • Site Templates (My Site, News Site, Internet Presence Site)
  • Templates requiring server side code
  • Server Admin Templates

Portals

What we get:

  • Client Integration
  • SharePoint Designer Integration
  • Audience Targeting to a SharePoint group
  • Portal Site templates
  • Site Manager
  • Site and Document Aggregation
  • Document Rollup Web Part
  • Mobile Device Support

What we don’t get:

  • My Sites
  • Audience targeting to distribution groups or the ability to create audiences
  • Membership web parts
  • User Profiles Import
  • Back and Restore via SP Designer

Content Management

What we get:

  • Document Information and Panel Bar
  • Site Authoring
  • Master Pages, Page Layouts, navigation controls
  • Some retention and auditing policies
  • Three State Workflow and all standard document workflows
  • WYSIWYG Editor
  • Standard Publishing Site Templates: Collaboration and Publishing
  • Site Variations

What we don’t get:

  • Content Staging, Publishing and Deployment
  • Standard enterprise site templates
  • Records repository and legal holds
  • Email content as records

Search

What we get:

  • Search within site collection
  • Security trimmed results
  • Configurable scope

What we don’t get:

  • Cross collection search
  • Enterprise content sources
  • People Search
  • Search Federation
  • Business Data Search

Business Process and Forms

What we get:

  • Form Libraries
  • Custom no-code workflows

What we don’t get:

  • Custom workflows that are coded
  • Browser-based forms
  • SharePoint Server OOTB workflows

Customization Capabilities

Probably one of the most important questions we may have about using SharePoint Online is what can we customize. We can do customizations, but we are limited to customizing only what doesn’t require coding.

SharePoint Designer is the tool to use to customize our SharePoint Online site. With it we can:

  • Create no-code workflows
  • Modify and create master pages, page layouts
  • Create content types and taxonomy
  • Create custom site templates
  • Use the Data Form Web Part to create mashups of SharePoint data or other data brought in using Web Services
  • Create InfoPath Forms – no code allowed

If we are using Visual Studio to build custom web parts, features or workflows, then we don’t want SharePoint Online:

  • No in-line code is allowed, including code in InfoPath Forms or custom coded workflows
  • Can’t create features, site definitions, web parts, solutions – anything that requires something be installed and configured on the server.
  • we also can’t modify SharePoint files, web.config settings or security
  • No custom database modifications
  • No configuration changes that affect the web server or the .NET framework


SharePoint 2010, A Business Collaboration Platform

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Microsoft branded some of its best-selling products to come with the “2010″ stamp. Many of the forthcoming 2010 editions – including Microsoft Office, Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010 which are being positioned as unified communications solutions.

The most awaited among these products is a whole new SharePoint edition called, Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the Enterprise & the Web that enables you to connect & empower people through an integrated set of rich features. Whether deployed on-premises or as hosted services, SharePoint 2010 helps you cut costs with a unified infrastructure while allowing you to rapidly respond to your business needs. You can get a sneak peek here.

There’s been a lot of excitement building over SharePoint 2010 in the industry. Some SharePoint 2010 new features are:

New User Interface including new Ribbon
Office 2007 style ribbon interface

Web Edit
Allows users to easily customize a site

Silverlight Web Part
Easy Silverlight solutions into SharePoint

Rich Theming
Few office-style themes, just like in Word and PowerPoint.

Multiple Browser Support
IE 7-8, Firefox and Safari. No news about Chrome and Opera

Visio Services
Lets you share data linked diagrams in real time

SharePoint Designer
Comes with a new UI, improved workflow and improved collaboration between designers

Business Connectivity Services (the evolution of the Business Data Catalog)

SharePoint Workspace
Incorporate offline-online synchronizations

Rich Media Support
No matter what type of rich media you’re using, SharePoint 2010 will make your life easier

IT Professional

Streamlined Central Administration
Way better organized Central Administration site

SharePoint Best Practices Analyzer
Farm health monitoring at its best with “Problems and Solutions” page

Usage Reporting and Logging
Consolidated logging and usage reporting capabilities

Large List Resource Throttling
Performance management of big lists of thousands and millions of items

Unattached Content Database Recovery
Allows temporary use of content databases, useful for recovery and restore purposes

Visual Upgrade
Easy migration from 2007 to 2010 while retaining the 2007 themes and UI

Developer
- Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Tools
- Language Integrated (LINQ) for SharePoint
- Developer Dashboard
- Business Connectivity Services
- Client Object Model (OM)
- Silverlight Web Part

What is SharePoint in Plain English

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009


SharePoint in Plain English

Sign up for a RISK FREE trial of SharePoint Online (no credit card required/no committment necessary)

How do SharePoint Online and Office SharePoint Server Feature Compare?

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Depending on your unique business requirements, making a decision of whether you should host SharePoint on-premise or in the Clouds can be tough. We found the Microsoft SharePoint® Online Standard Service Description document, detailed and helpful.   Jump to Page 23 Appendix B for a feature comparison between Office SharePoint Server and SharePoint Online Standard and SharePoint Online Dedicated.  Below is summary of Appendix B from the August 19, 2009 version of the document.

This helps break out of features by:

  • Collaboration Feature Comparison
  • Portal Feature Comparison
  • Content Management Feature Comparison
  • Search Feature Comparison
  • BI Feature Comparison
  • Business Process and Forms Feature Comparison

Interested in trying out SharePoint Online?  Click here to sign up for a 30 day risk free trial (no credit card required/no obligation to buy the service)