SharePoint Daily for November 24, 2008

Top News Stories
Microsoft to Aid in War on Terror, Builds Software for DHS (Ars Technica)
Microsoft and GIS vendor ESRI have announced that they are constructing a suite of collaboration tools for intelligence gathering and processing, intended for deployment at the Department of Homeland Security's national fusion centers. The software is built on top of Microsoft's SharePoint server platform and ESRI's ArcGIS Advanced Enterprise server.

SharePoint: Pros and Cons (IT Business Edge)
IT Business Edge blogger Kachina Dunn wrote about some of the many differing opinions of SharePoint, Microsoft’s collaboration software, back in April. Microsoft expects to pass the $1 billion mark this year, making SharePoint the company’s fastest-growing product ever.

Microsoft Details Plans for Visual Studio and .NET (ZDNet)
In the wake of the recent PDC and TechEd developer events, Microsoft has decided to put some of its key executives out on the road to explain the innovations that Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 have in store.

Microsoft Plans Subscription-Based PC Management (PC Mag)
Microsoft said this week that it will extend its subscription-based offerings into desktop PC management, although details on the new service are sketchy.

Is SaaS Cheaper Than Licensed Software? (Read Write Web)
Most people quickly answer this question in the affirmative. I certainly do. However, there are people out there who aren't sure. They look at the monthly cost of a SaaS application and compare it to the equivalent licensed product over an extended period of time. Given enough time, you will eventually hit a point when the SaaS product appears to be more expensive. Let's look at it from the perspective of the total cost of ownership (TCO). 

Will Microsoft Online Services Cannibalize On-Premises Exchange, SharePoint? (eWeek)
Microsoft executive Chris Capossela denies that Microsoft Online Services such as Exchange Online and SharePoint Online will eat into the market share of Microsoft's traditional on-premises messaging and collaboration software suites. If this is true, it's good news for Microsoft as it moves deeper into cloud computing and SAAS to take on Google in Web services.

Internet Explorer 8 Will Ship In 2009 (InformationWeek)
Computer users hoping to get their hands on a final version of Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Internet Explorer 8 Web browser are going to have to wait a bit longer. Though speculation has pegged IE8's release for sometime this year, a Microsoft executive has confirmed that the browser will not ship until 2009.

Two Console Features that Would Kill PCs (TechRadar)
While everyone else is arguing about whether Windows 7 really is faster than Vista or whether Vista is the worst version of Windows ever (or even the worst version of anything ever), I can't help feeling we have all missed the point.

Around the Blogosphere
Announcing Workflow Essentials for SharePoint (SharePoint Solutions Blog)
Nearly all organizations which implement SharePoint® seek to automate business processes by taking advantage of its workflow capabilities. Many of these same companies quickly discover that although the plumbing is there to create robust workflows in SharePoint Designer, more tools are needed to effectively automate their processes. At that point a few options come to mind: companies can either pay programmers to author custom workflow activities, or they can purchase an expensive third party add-on for workflow. As a welcomed alternative, SharePoint Solutions' Workflow Essentials now provides you with a proven reliable, less expensive way to augment SharePoint Designer's workflow capabilities.

SharePointReviews.com - Independent Consumer Reviews on SharePoint Related Products and Services (Andrew Connell)
When buying a car, lots of folks head to Consumer Reports. When I buy electronics, I go straight to CNET and Amazon to read their reviews, but most importantly, to see what customers are saying with respect to the pros and cons. Finally, we have something like this for SharePoint!

How To Integrate Project Server 2007 with SharePoint 2007 (SharePoint Buzz)
Here are some quick how to integrate Project Server 2007 with SharePoint 2007

Book Review - "SharePoint for Project Management" (Clever Workarounds)
To review this book I need to tell you a true story first… The very first MOSS 2007 project that I was involved in did not go well. I was the architect who had to design the SharePoint farm, perform some IA work, sort out governance and work with the stressed out project manager who was dealing with stakeholders who insisted we press ahead, despite the fact they all had wildly different interpretations of what problem they were trying to solve.

Customer Questions - Email to SharePoint List Scale, Managing Inbound Email, and Migration (SharePoint Joel)
Great turn out for the webinar turned into so many questions that I couldn't answer them all. I've started sharing further detailed information on the information shared on the webinar on the OfflineSharePoint.com SharePoint blog on Email Management with SharePoint.

Guest Blogger: Joel Oleson (Offline SharePoint)
You may be aware that we just held a very successful Webinar, “The Myths & Truths of Email Management with SharePoint.”, with Joel Oleson. Joel is a well known Microsoft SharePoint Architect, consultant and speaker. He has a popular blog on SharePoint as well, appropriately called SharePointJoel.

What is Web 2.0? (EndUser SharePoint)
If you’re having a hard time selling your organization on why you need SharePoint or what Web 2.0 can do for your organization, a brief history of Internet technologies can’t hurt.

On the lighter side...
IE 8 Delayed Again, Malware Writers Distraught (Ridiculopathy)
It was shaping up to to be best Christmas present ever, a brand new web browser from Microsoft and a whole new treasure trove of exploitable "features" and security holes just waiting to be discovered- and just in time for the long holiday break. For weeks there had been rumors that a release candidate was ready to go, but on Friday the company announced that the official release had been delayed until at least the first or second quarter of next year, perhaps longer. For malware developers who have been waiting eagerly for the release of Internet Explorer 8 for more than two years, the news came as a crushing blow.

Around Bamboo Nation
How to Show Multiple Exchange Calendars in a Single Calendar in SharePoint (The Bamboo Team Blog)
One of the coolest things we have ever created is the ability to view multiple Exchange user calendars overlaid on one another in a single view in the Team Calendar Web Part. This makes it a true, collaborative, team calendar. So often you hear words like “collaboration” and “team” when talking about SharePoint products, but when you look at them closer, you find out that it is not really collaborative at all and requires a lot of work and process improvement to get it to a point where it might be just scratching the surface of collaborative. But with this new functionality, the Team Calendar Web Part really earns its name. Allow me to elaborate.

November 2008 e-news Recap (The Bamboo Team Blog)
This month we released two major products, the SharePoint Navigators (available exclusively in the Bamboo Suites), and MashPoint. The SharePoint Navigators allow you to create custom menus, tabs, tree items, and a Site Actions menu for site navigation. As a free data integration platform for SharePoint, MashPoint enables Web Parts to surface external data in both WSS and MOSS.

How to Edit or Delete a SharePoint Group (SharePoint Blank)
Whoops, turns out I spoke too soon when I indicated yesterday that my groups-related posts were over ... there's still gold in them thar hills!  This fact was brought home to me when I realized that, since I had created my test group on our corporate portal (as opposed to in a test area or in my My Site), it was now showing up as a "real" group in the Quick Launch on our portal.  Which discovery naturally led to the question, "OK, I've created a group, now how the heck do I delete it?"

Record Site Traffic at Bamboo (The Bamboo Team Blog)
Hi, Steve Gaitten here, Director of Online Operations at Bamboo Solutions.   I wanted to take a moment and share some positive news about site traffic here at Bamboo. Here are the headlines:

Microsoft Updates
Install updates for Microsoft Office 2007 Help (Help and How-to)
If your computer is connected to the Internet while you are using the programs in the 2007 Microsoft Office system, you already see the latest Help articles. If your computer is not connected to the Internet, you see the Help articles that were included on the 2007 Microsoft Office system CDs. If you can't connect to the Internet while you are using an Office program, you can now see the latest Help articles by downloading and installing updated Help files.

SharePoint Events
November 25, Christchurch, New Zealand, Christchurch SharePoint User Group
November 25, London, England, SharePoint User Group UK
November 25, Online, The Basics of Content Types in SharePoint 2007
November 26, Melbourne, Australia, Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group

December 2, Chicago, Illinois, The Chicago Microsoft SharePoint Business Strategies Group
December 2, Grand Rapids, Michigan, West Michigan SharePoint User Group
December 2, Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville SharePoint Users Group
December 2, San Diego, California, San Diego .NET Developers Group Meeting
December 3, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
December 3, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
December 4, Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas City Office Geeks
December 4, Online, Bamboo Recent Product Releases
December 9, Tampa, Florida, TOGA User Group Meeting
December 10, Bloomington, Minnesota, Minnesota SharePoint User Group
December 10, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs SharePoint User Group
December 10, Online, SharePoint Project Management Webinar
December 10, Online, SharePoint Administration Webinar
December 11, Puget Sound, Washington, Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group
December 11, San Francisco, California, San Francisco SharePoint Users Group
December 11, Reston, Virginia, SharePoint User Group of the District of Columbia
December 18, Online, Bamboo Recent Product Releases

January 27-29, San Francisco, California, SPTechCon

February 2-4, San Diego, California, SharePoint Best Practices Conference

* Please contact Chris Dooley (chris.dooley@bamboosolutions.com) to include your event in our listing.

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