There seems to be a lot of speculation going on with regards to what will be included in the upcoming SharePoint 2010 release. I seem to think that Microsoft have had their largest Technology Adoption Program (TAP) running for some time now and best of all YOU can become a part of it (if you aren’t already).
“What?! How!” you might say, and I’ll tell you – join Windows Live.
Windows Live - An insight into SharePoint 2010?
Office Live Workspaces - A user friendly SharePoint Workspace?
With a recent push from Microsoft SharePoint marketing on the applicability of Social Networking in an enterprise environment, there seems to be no better place to try out new functionality than in the Windows Live platform. Andrew McAfee, the father of “Enterprise 2.0″, explains:
Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers
It would seem silly for Microsoft not to use Windows Live as an R & D platform for SharePoint 2010. The correlations between the two platforms are fairly obvious and are listed in the table below.
| Table 1 – Windows Live & SharePoint – Functionality comparison | |
| Windows Live | SharePoint |
| Home | My Site (Inward ‘personal’ view) |
| Profiles | My Site (Outward ‘public’ view) |
| People | “Colleague Tracker” web part Organization Hierarchy |
| Outlook Web Access | |
| Photos | Picture Library |
| Integration with Windows Live Messenger | Integration with Office Communicator |
| What’s new with your network | “SharePoint Sites” web part |
| Calendar | Outlook Web Access |
| Events | Outlook Web Access
Event Lists |
| Groups | Team Sites and associated functionality |
| SkyDrive | Document Libraries |
| Spaces | Sites within My Sites |
| Office Live Workspaces | Team Sites and associated functionality |
| Mobile | Mobile SharePoint |
I urge you to explore Windows Live with this information in hand. I would really like to hear what Windows Live features you think should be pushed through to the SharePoint platform. What Windows Live features…
- Are a “must have” in SharePoint 2010?
- Do you want NOW in SharePoint 2007?
- Are done better in Windows Live than how they are done in SharePoint 2007?
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, MOSS 2007, SharePoint 2010, Social Networking, Windows Live
This is quite an unexpected approach, but I somehow don’t see how it can reveal the newest features in SP 2010. What about, say, Silverlight integration? How’s collaboration to be revealed? Where’s SharePoint Workspace? To name just a few…
Certainly I would agree that Microsoft’s own use of Silverlight has been quite limited, especially when it comes to their Live offerings. Perhaps this is in favor of a snappy, lightweight approach to web applications that appeal to (and can be accessed by) the masses.
Bear in mind that a lot of the time these services are accessed from shared computers or workstations that the user has no control over what applications get installed. If Silverlight was used and the plugin was not installed on the computer, the service would be rendered useless.
Don’t forget to check out Skydrive and Office Live Workspaces for SharePoint workspace-like functionality. I’m unaware of any integration with Groove. You can certainly launch SkyDrive from Live Messenger and use it to share files as opposed from directly transferring the file P2P.