REDMOND, Wash., April 7, 2003 — Microsoft Corp. today provided details on the newest version of SharePoint (TM) Portal Server, the scalable enterprise portal and collaboration solution, currently in beta 2 release. The new version, which will officially be named Microsoft®
Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, combines the best of version 1.0 — including sophisticated search and a flexible, component-based user interface — with enhanced manageability, scalability and performance. Building on the strengths of Windows Server (TM) 2003, Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 offers customers a secure enterprise portal solution that integrates information from line-of-business systems into one environment and enables users to access contextually relevant information from enterprise applications using single sign-on and personalization features.
“Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server provides an end-to-end solution that connects information workers to personally relevant information, applications, people and teams,”
said Jeff Teper, general manager of the Business Portals Group at Microsoft.
“It acts as a main hub for the Office System desktop, making it simple and powerful for users throughout the organization to get information, work together, and make smarter, faster business decisions. SharePoint Portal Server also provides great organization and management tools for Windows® SharePoint Services sites, so people and teams can effortlessly publish information to the entire organization, making it easy for information workers to take advantage of the power of team collaboration every day.”
Using the combined collaboration features in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services (Microsoft’s Web-based team collaboration technology formerly known as SharePoint Team Services), organizations can enable their employees to create and manage rich, easy-to-build Web sites for collaboration on documents, projects and tasks, and allow these sites to be organized, discovered and leveraged throughout the organization. Features such as document versioning, approval workflow, check in and check out, document profiling, and publishing help improve information flow. Users also can personalize and customize their intranet and extranet sites using advanced user-profiling capabilities.
Avanade Inc., a global technology integrator, is reviewing Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 with a number of its enterprise customers in the government, financial services and utilities sectors. Projects under way include a collaborative intranet solution for a large, geographically dispersed organization; a document and records repository for a municipal government; and, in combination with Microsoft Project Server, a collaborative teaming and program management environment accessing data housed in legacy systems.
“Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server offers a compelling value proposition for customers in search of a flexible and scalable enterprise portal solution,”
said Eric Blankenburg, enterprise collaboration practice director at Avanade.
“In particular, we like the product’s ability to manage secure access to back-end systems to readily deliver the right data to the right person using ASP.NET-based Web parts.”
Highlights in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Integration
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Users can access line-of-business applications (including third-party and industry-specific applications), project management systems, business management systems and Office applications through the portal.
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Single sign-on is enabled for applications accessed via the portal.
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Information can be organized, managed and secured by topic.
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Alerts notify users of updates to relevant information and documents in real time.
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Users can browse or search for relevant information.
Collaboration
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Wizard-based administration enables information workers to create SharePoint sites and invite co-workers, partners and customers to join with appropriate levels of access.
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Users can augment the reach and efficiency of current collaboration methods such as e-mail, meetings, teleconferencing and videoconferencing.
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Users can search file servers, Web servers, Web servers, Exchange public folders, Lotus Notes and databases for relevant information.
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Users can locate relevant people based on job roles and skill sets.
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Users can find teams across the organization as well as their related content and documents.
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Users can check in and check out content from Office applications or the Web front end. Automatic versioning, approval routing, profiling and metadata capture of documents facilitate content collaboration.
Personalization and Customization
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Portal pages are tailored for each user based on who they are and what they do.
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Navigation bars change to display relevant options on each portal page based on selected Web Parts and user permissions.
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Content can be targeted in Web Parts for the organization, division, audience or individual.
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Users can personalize content and layout using familiar Web-based tools such as drag-and-drop functionality.
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The portal remembers how each user prefers to see information.
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The portal shares information about users with applications and other users.
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Users can search and browse secure Web Parts galleries for relevant Web Parts to personalize portal pages.
About SharePoint Products and Technologies
Windows SharePoint Services is a Web-based team collaboration environment built on the Microsoft .NET Framework, a highly reliable and manageable platform. Windows SharePoint Services allows anyone with a Web browser to create and access virtual workspaces for managing documents, discussions, lists, surveys and other important contextual information such as team member status and presence.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 extends the capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services by providing organization, indexing and management tools for SharePoint sites, and enabling information captured in sites to be published to the entire organization. Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 also delivers personally relevant information through audience targeting as well as personalization and customization tools. Flexible and robust application integration is possible via Web Parts and rich views on XML, and Web services are provided via an extensible user interface. The upcoming release of Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 is part of the Office System, designed to significantly broaden the customer and partner value proposition with a rich client-server, XML-enabled solution that connects people, teams and enterprises.
About Microsoft Office System
The Microsoft Office System is an easy way to help more people use information to positively impact their business. Through a system of familiar and easy-to-use programs, servers and services, users can connect people and organizations to information, business processes and each other — helping ensure that they derive the most value out of their information. The Microsoft Office System consists of Microsoft Office, the Microsoft Office FrontPage® Web site creation and management tool, the Microsoft Office InfoPath (TM) information gathering program, the Microsoft Office OneNote (TM) note-taking program, Microsoft Project and Project Server, Microsoft Office Publisher, Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and Microsoft Office Visio®
drawing and diagramming software.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft, SharePoint, Windows Server, Windows, FrontPage, InfoPath, OneNote and Visio are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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