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SharePoint: A Legal Killer App | ABA Journal - Law News Now

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:29:48 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

even a solo lawyer can use SharePoint for less than $50 per month. Microsoft has continued to refine the tool, and it might be time to put SharePoint on your technology to-do list.

SharePoint is a software platform used for hosting customizable websites where multiple users can share documents and work on projects

The key to SharePoint is something called “Web parts,” small software applets or controls that provide a set of functions, like a task list or a discussion board.

Web parts then act as controls that interact with other programs and pull information from a variety of sources, including law office programs, databases and websites, all without the user needing to know anything about the underlying programming.

The result is a personalized portal page where you and everyone else given access can find, see and manage all of the relevant information for your project in a familiar, easy-to-learn Web format.

web-parts = applets that pull information from an external program or source [on the office server or on the web] and deploy the information on the "SharePoint" website in boxes built into the overall page posted by mhedayat

Click on a link and you open a document or read an e-mail without moving from program to program. And with a few quick clicks you can move your list of documents around the page or change fonts and colors without affecting anyone else’s experience

Tags: application collaboration e2.0 law2.0 lawyers microsoft sharepoint web-based

Posted by: mhedayat

Forget file formats. The battle is Sharepoint | The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET Blogs

Thu, 22 May 2008 07:25:07 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

People are agog that Microsoft has announced support for Open Document Format (ODF), but I'm not sure why. This was a foregone conclusion once Microsoft figured out how to move lock-in above the file level to the content network.

In other words, to Sharepoint.

Microsoft has been hell-bent on getting enterprises to dump content into its proprietary Sharepoint repository, calling it the next Windows operating system. I call it the future of Microsoft lock-in.

Tags: microsoft oasis odf ooxml sharepoint

Posted by: garyedwards

Microsoft Partners with Atlassian & NewsGator - SharePoint Goes Web 2.0 - Flock

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 21:58:32 -0000

Comments:

Pay close attention here boys and girls because here it is. Wonder why Microsoft is wealing, dealing and ready to shell out billions for Web 20 collaboration software? It's to tie them into the MS Stack of MSOffice, IE, Exchange/SharePoint, MS LIve, MS Dynamics, MS SQL Server, etc.

Grand convergence is the convergence of desktop, server, device and web systems. It increasing looks like were going to have to live with the MS Stack and the Open Stack of grand convergence interoperability. One will be able to have perfect interop within it's walls, with all applications able to handle the same compound XML document. The other will be totally unable to implement an inteoperable version of MS-OOXML.

Members of the MS Stack will be able to access everything in the Open Stacks, but outside systems will have limited (crippled) access into the MS Stack. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Here we go again.

~ge~

posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

4) Linking; Within Confluence, users can access SharePoint document facilities. By including SharePoint lists and content within Confluence, users can (in a single click) edit Microsoft Office documents.

Tags: exchange html ms-ooxml sharepoint w3c web20

Posted by: garyedwards

Open Sources | InfoWorld | While you were sleeping... (The Sharepoint Trojan Horse) | April 24, 2007 05:17 AM | By Matt Asay

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:40:08 -0000

Comments:

Matt Asay's commentary pointing out that the Microsoft monopoly is moving from the desktop to the SharePoint Server. Matt's cites a recent Wall Street Journal article as his reference. And both have it right except that i would have called this the Exchange/SharePoint Hub juggernaut.

The idea is to migrate existing MSOffice bound business processes to the E/S Hub. From there, end user documents, collaboration and workflow interfaces are wired into Microsoft backends and web fronts (MS SQL Server, MS IIS, MS Active Directory, MS Dynamics, MS Communications Server, etc.) posted by garyedwards

Tags: cdf interoperability odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument sharepoint

Posted by: garyedwards

Microsoft Watch - Business Applications - Convergence=Integration

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:08:52 -0000

Comments:

Thanks for the insightful commentary Joe. I see things a bit differently. Maybe my tin foil hat is wearing a bit tight these days, but i see MSOffice XML (MOOXML and the MOOXML binary InfoSet) as a very important aspect of how Microsoft integrates and leverages their desktop office monopoly power into server side and device systems.

It is the combination of MOOXML and .NET that creates the integration mesh between desktop, server systems, and devices. Imagine every application or service participating in either a loosely coupled or carefully crafted information processing chain, being fluent in MOOXML, and able to process internal data structures and processing instructions unique to .NET.

Enterprise systems and services from ORACLE, IBM and SAP will not have this same integration fluency.

The design of ISO MOOXML is such that it would be impossible for <b>non Microsoft server and device systems</b> to match the quality and depth of integration with the 500 million desktops running MSOffice bound business processes.

Given that MOOXML will probably succeed at getting ISO/IEC approval, removing the last "legal" barrier for this MOOXML Stack, were looking at a massive migration of MSOffice bound workgroup - workflow business processes to a new lockin point; The Exchange/SharePoint Hub.

With the real estate industry, this migration to to E/S hosted applications only took six months to completely replace years of desktop productivity shrinkware dominance. The leap in productivity was spectacular.

The downside of this migration is that the real estate industry is now tied into Microsoft at the critically important business process level. A binding that will perhaps last through the next fifteen years. Try to take this away from the average Realtor though, and they will bite your hand off.

The productivity payoff of this migration is so dramatic that on one Friday afternoon, going into a weekend of showing homes and submitting offers - the stuff that will make or break every Realtor - Microsoft issued a summary end of life for all Win2K desktops. And pulled it off without a hitch.

What MS did was to issue a security patch for all Exchange systems. The patched systems then required IE 7.0. There is no IE 7.0 for Win2K desktops - notebooks. End of Life. And not one complaint. The entire real estate industry simply ran out to purchase new XP MSOffice 2003 systems able to run IE 7.0. The lesson i took away from this is that the productive value of these E/S Hub applications is such that writing a check to continue business was seen as a requirement equivalent to having a license to practice or a car to drive around in. It's a basic business expense. They were happy to write these checks.

I believe that the MOOXML Stack is designed to lock out competitors at a level they've never thought possible. And i think it will work given that there is no such thing as an alternative ODF Stack.

In 2004, washed away by the DOJ anti trust settlement, Scott McNeely announced the terms of Sun's surrender to Microsoft. He pointed out that Sun had find a way to work with Microsoft because the Sun's customers were demanding better integration of server side systems with the Microsoft desktop.

Sun sales people had tried to convince server side customers that they could achieve the needed level of desktop integration by replacing MSOffice with the inexpensive StarOffice or the freely available OpenOffice. When that didn't work, the sales staff stopped trying to bundle StarOffice with their server side systems because it was killing sales.

Now Microsoft has their own server side systems coming down the pike in droves. These systems all offer superior integration with MSOffice productivity environments. They also provide an easy to walk path towards the incredible productivity jump a business process takes by moving from desktop bound workgroups to an XML based integration Hub.

Server side vendors like IBM, Oracle, Zimbra, Alfresco, RedHat - JBoss, SalesForce.com and Google are never going to get that same kind of integration to the MSOffice bound desktop.

When the server side guys competed against each other, currying favor with Redmond was the secret to marketplace advantage. Now that Microsoft has competitive offerings, those favors might not be available. If the purchase decision is going to be based on integration with the MSOffice bound desktop, we're looking at a whole new monopoly realm of desktop to server to device systems.

There's one last hurdle for Redmond. Get MOOXML through ISO/IEC.

~ge~
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Microsoft significantly increases cross-integration of features with the company's other software.

Microsoft acquired most of the products making up its Dynamics product line, and what a motley crew. New products and versions bring the Dynamics line more into the Microsoft family, in part by convergence—or increased integration with the company's other software.

Tags: chains exchange hubs microsoft odf office ooxml opendocument openxml sharepoint xml

Posted by: garyedwards

Most Business Tech Pros Wary About Web 2.0 Tools In Business - Technology News by InformationWeek

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:28:27 -0000

Comments:

Great coverage from InformationWeek about the emerging Enterprise 2.0 arena. Author Michael Hoover does not get too deep into the Information Processing Chain, as exampled by the integrated Vista Stack of desktop, server, device,Internet systems and services. But he provides a more than adequate framework for evaluating chain components.

As the ODF - OOXML battle contiues to expand, engulfing swallowing and swamping near everythign in it's path, the day is not too far off when the battle will move to the center of Enterprise 2.0 considerations. It has to. XML Hubs are how these converging technologies are going to be gathered, integrated and configured to impact rapidly changing business processes. There has to be a universal transport in these systems that all applications can work, and nothig matches the highly portable and interactive document/data capabilities of ODF and OOXML. They alone own the desktop prodcutivity environment migration to XML. And it will be through XML - RDF/XML that the Hubs finally integrate the flow of information between desktops, servers, devices and Internet systems.

~ge~

posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

How should an IT team start thinking about an Enterprise 2.0 strategy? One way is to carve it into two main areas. The first is Web-based information sharing--think business versions of Wikipedia, MySpace, and Flickr. A sizable minority of companies are finding effective business uses for blogs, wikis, syndicated feeds, pervasive search, social networking, collaborative content portals like SharePoint, and mashups that use easier-to-integrate APIs and fast-response development techniques such as Ajax. One example: Wikis, which let multiple people access and edit a document online, are widely used at 6% of companies in our survey and used effectively by a few employees at 25% of companies.

The second area is voice and messaging, where voice over IP, instant messaging, presence, videoconferencing, and unified communications can make it possible to connect people in more relevant ways. Unified communications entails the blending of voice calls, video, and messages, coupled with functionality like embedded click-to-call links in documents and contact lists and the ability to see if colleagues and partners are available to chat. It's widely used at 13% of companies surveyed and effectively by a few at 24%.

Tags: exchange iso microsoft msoffice oasis odf ooxml opendocument openxml sharepoint vista xml

Posted by: garyedwards

Microsoft Closer on \'Office Open\' Blessing

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:28:27 -0000

Comments:

Internet News is reporting that Ecma has submitted to the ISO/IEC JTC1 their repsonsess to the 20 "fast track" for Ecma 376 (OOXML) objections. Nothing but blue skies and steady breeze at their back for our friends at Redmond, according to Ecma's rubber stamper in chief, Jan van den Beld.

Once again there is that ever present drum beat from Microsoft that ODF can't handle MSOffice and legacy MSOffice features - including but not mentioned the conversion to XML of those infamous billions of binary documents:

"Microsoft has countered that the OOXML format is valuable because it is

closer to Office 2007 and is backwards-compatible with older versions of

Office. "Although both ODF and Open XML are document formats, they are

designed to address different needs in the marketplace," the company wrote

in an open letter published earlier this month."
Of course this "incompatibility"outcome was planned years ago. What else could we expect since Microsoft has steadfastedly refused to participate in the OASIS Open Office XML (ODF) effort, which began in 2002 with Microsoft joining the group, but noticeably choosing to observe without contribution or participation.
So it is Microsoft who is a fault for any finding of ODF - MSOffice incompatibility, not the OASIS ODF Technical Committee or ODF community of vendors, developers and users.
Our friends in Redmond planned and plotted for this dilemma. Their intentions are to control completely the migration of information and information processes from legacy binary file formats to their own version of XML.
One thing many people miss about this is that Microsoft mus tmove to XML fiel formats no matter what. The Internet has usshered in a new age of collaborative computing based on universal access, connectivity and exchange. It's a world driven by HTML, XML and RDF/XML. Microsoft either embraces this juggernaut, or gets left in the dust.
Interestingly, i for one believe that Microsoft has the best next generation Internet - XML stategey out there. There's a lot of low level wiki - writely collaobration out there. And of course Lotus Notes has reigned for years, alone and unchallenged in the client/server area of intelligent documents, forms, managed workflows, scripted routing, and collaborative computing. Microsoft's extraordinary opportunity is to leverage their desktop MSOffic emonopoly of over 500 million users into the emerging arena of highly interoperable "Information Processing Chains".
Because of Redmond's iron fisted monopolist control over MSOffice desktop productivity environment's, they own entirely the Information Processing Chain opportunity. And the Vista Chain (Stack) is a wonder to behold.
The core of the Vista Chain is the OOXML document/data transport connection between MSOffice and the Exchange/SharePoint/Groove Hub. IE and Vista augment this chain in that they are OOXML fluent and OOXML enabling.
The idea here is for Microsoft to migrate to the E/S XML HUB both the MSOffice bound binary documents and the volumes of critical day to day MSOffice bound business processes, line of business integrated apps, and scores of assistive technology type add-ons. Microsoft has to ge this job done before others swoop in and do it for them. Others would be SaaS, SOA, and a host of Enterprise 2.0 collaborative computing initiatives.
The Vista Chain is based on the portable XML document/data transport, OOXML; and,the Vista .NET 3.0 framework. Legacy Win 32 APi application and platform dependencies that bind those billions of binary documents to MSOffice, are replaced in OOXML by bindings to the Vista .NET 3.0 dependencies. From the E/S Hub, it's easy for end users to create data and workflow bindings involving MS SQL Server transaction and data processing backends. Same with MS Live, Office Communicator, Active Directory, MS ERP, MS CRM, and MS Money.
The Vista Chain is good stuff. Moving those MSOffic ebound business processes to the E/S XML Hub is not all that difficult, and the reward is a guaranteed leap in porductivity. A giant leap.
Which brings us back to the challenge ODF faces. Will there be an ODF Chain? Not if users and providers are unable to perfectly convert those MSOffice bound billions of billions fo binary documents and MSOffice bound business processes to ODF.
The challenge for ODF is in doing exactly what OOXML does. The end users migration to XML and the XML Hubs is entirely dependent on three successive stages. All of which OOXML can currently master:
1. Perfect Conversion Fidelity :: of billions of binary documents to XML (ODF - OOXXML)
2. Perfect Round Trip Fidelity :: MSOffic ebound business processes Workgroup - WorkFlow
3. Application Interoperability :: between all processing chain application participants, even as they span desktop, server, device and Enterprise 2.0 serivces and systems.
The OpenDocument Foundation believes that our ODF 1.2 daVinci plugin for MSOffice will prove conclussively that ODF can handle stages 1 and 2 every bit as well as OOXML. In fact, daVinci can do much better than OOXML in that other ODF 1.2 ready applications will be able to directly participate for the first time ever. The Foundation also has two other products in the works to augment the daVinci miracle; the portable InfoSet Engine and APi, and the Interop Wizard for OpenOffice.

When the OASIS ODF Metadata RDF/XML Sub Committee sends the ODF 1.2 proposal to the mainline TC for consideration, we will release the daVinci prototype to Stephen O'Grady of Redmonk for comparative testing against the other available plugins. At the end of the day though, the cahllenge for daVinci will be in proving conclussively that ODF is able, sufficient and ready to master the three stages of migration, and do so every bit as well as OOXML.

posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Opponents to OOXML, which include IBM (Quote) and the Open Document Foundation, have argued that Microsoft's specifications are unwieldy and that the standard application is redundant with the Open Document Format (ODF), which already exists.

Microsoft has countered that the OOXML format is valuable because it is closer to Office 2007 and is backwards-compatible with older versions of Office. "Although both ODF and Open XML are document formats, they are designed to address different needs in the marketplace," the company wrote in an open letter published earlier this month.

Tags: ecma exchange iso microsoft msoffice oasis odf ooxml opendocument openxml sharepoint vista xml

Posted by: garyedwards

Vista and Office 2007 spin tales from the Underground | Channel Register

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:28:26 -0000

Comments:

Excellent article about Vista and MSOffice "System" 2007 as development platforms. The author provides one of the better explanations of how MSOffice 2007 and SharePoint "Hub" are connected and joined at the hip. Hey, i invented tha tterm "Hub"! Or so i thought. I guess some things are just obvious.

My use of the term "Hub" to describe an XML turnstile where backend information meges with portal interfaces, email, messaging, and document storage/collaboration goes back to the 2003 "Sales and Inventory" management system prototype we built for Comcast. Desktops connect to the hub through XML documents, XForms and Jabber XMPP data binding, and browsers. Great stuff - the way SOA should be done!

posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Firstly it is a back end to what most people would traditionally think of as "Microsoft Office", i.e. the suite of desktop tools (Word, PowerPoint, Excel and so on). In this respect, it acts as a hub for collaboration, document storage/sharing, search and a range of other functions. However, SharePoint can also be used independently of the Office desktop components as a very respectable and capable portal environment for serving up either native .Net or composite applications to users through a browser.

Tags: exchange iso microsoft msoffice oasis odf ooxml opendocument openxml sharepoint vista xml

Posted by: garyedwards