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Chapter 1: Collaborating with SharePoint
From a technical standpoint, SharePoint 2007 actually refers to the combina-
tion of WSS 3.0 with some version of MOSS 2007. Informally, however, when
people refer to SharePoint 2007 (or SharePoint, for short), they are actually
not referring just to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, the Web-based platform
that does the bulk of the job in enabling the sharing of all kinds of data and
information with your team members. Keep in mind, however, that this book
covers only WSS 3.0 features under the generic name “SharePoint.” The MOSS
2007 enhancements to the basic SharePoint platform offered by WSS 3.0 are
well beyond this book’s scope.
Keep in mind that Microsoft considers SharePoint 2007 as the core informa-
tion sharing and collaboration platform for the entire 2007 Microsoft Office
System. As a result, SharePoint 2007 technology is very closely integrated
with the major Microsoft Office 2007 applications, such as Outlook, Word,
and Excel. This is great news if you’re currently a user of the latest version
of Microsoft Office, and a great incentive to upgrade to Office 2007 if you’re
serious about using SharePoint 2007 for team collaboration and still haven’t
gotten around to upgrading your Office applications.
Because all of SharePoint’s information sharing and collaboration services
are Web-based, this means that you and your team members are going to
access the shared information and collaborate with one another on the
Web over the Internet. Normally, you’ll do this with a Web browser such
as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox running on a personal
computer under Windows XP or Vista. You can, however, also access
SharePoint information on a mobile device such as a cell phone that has
Internet access and some form of a Web browser.
Understanding SharePoint as
a Web-based technology
The following few practical issues are directly related to the fact that
SharePoint is an entirely Web-based technology:
✓ Displayed with Special Web Pages: The information you choose to
share with your teams is presented and accessed in the form of Web
sites with a special type of Web page (a la ASP.NET 3.0) whose content
and structure you can modify directly from within your Web browser or
by using a special editing program such as Office SharePoint Designer
2007. (See Chapter 13 for more on using this program.)
✓ Accessed via Web Browser: You and your teams can access the infor-
mation on SharePoint sites from any Internet-ready device. Instead of
having to have the right software installed on the device, you only need
a valid user ID and password in order to gain access to the SharePoint
sites with some sort of Web browser.