PJ Hough and others - First look at next version of Sharepoint

The Discussion

• 

  wow lots of very cool stuff.
  How easy to upgrade from Sharepoint v2 to v3?

• 

  Hmm.  There was a lot of talk, but I did not really get to see much of SharePoint - maybe just me.  For this and for the BizTalk vid, I was thinking to myself that I wished Robert would show up equipped with a nice 21-24 inch monitor (say on a Mobil Channel 9 cart).  Then if demo guy is on a Laptop, just plug it in and vid the larger monitor instead.  That way, your also not at some weird angle over the guys shoulder all the time - can't really see the screen much of the time.
  
  It would be really cool if they had a video camera that had a VGA+ input that would record dual streams at same time - the vga+ input and the camera input and record them in sync.  That way, when you go to edit, you can switch to the vga stream when demo starts going, yet still here the talker in perfect sync.  Not sure if such a beast exists.  At least the 21 monitor would help I think.  Get a big flat panel Dell and anchor it to the mobil cart and flip up as needed.  Have room to store your camera and extra batteries and extra tapes (as it seems you run out of tape sometimes.)  Just some random thoughts.  Cheers!
  
  --wjs
  

• 

  We are aiming to make the upgrade experience a very smooth one. There are definitely some new components that you will have to install before upgrading WSS (such as WinWF, the workflow engine), but your sites should all upgrade without any data loss.
  You will have the option of upgrading your sites 'in-place', or 'side-by-side', depending on the complexity of your environment and the extent of customizations that you have made. 
  
  
        ..P.J..

• 

  Hi Guys,

  Just watched the video and loved to see and hear what is coming up. Is there any schedule when this will hit beta / ctp? My collegues and I work for a partner that implements Sharepoint solutions, and our business uses it extensively internally, we are all itching to try it!!
  
  Regards,
  
  Alex.

• 

  We agree with staceyw that this was way too short for something as important to us as Sharepoint !!  We are excited about the possibilities of RSS, but Robert, can you go back and get more footage on Sharepoint v3 ??  The RSS discussion took way too long and we just didn't get to see enough of v3 "in action". 
  
  We watched with great interest the other Sharepoint segment and it appeared that the "question list" for this segment - with the key program people - should have been much broader and more detailed ... like the EXCELLENT demo for Office 12 ... now running at almost 65,000 views !!
  
  We think the success of the Office 12 segment was that it was mostly demo and WOW !!!!  We know from the Blogs that Sharepoint v3 is WOW as well ...
  
  Can we see more !!

• 

  The ASP.NET 2.0 features make this product look great. I am curious about how the installation procedure has changed. The SharePoint "tradition" makes many (like me) actually 'fear' installing Sharepoint. I will assume that this 'imagined burden' has no basis with the new SharePoint...
  
  This leads to the larger issue of installing/uninstalling Windows-based software. The X-Copy features of .NET applications must influence new apps like SharePoint, making a clean uninstall perfectly possible.
  
  

• 

  We will definitely be doing more Sharepoint stuff.

• 

  scobleizer wrote:

  We will definitely be doing more Sharepoint stuff.

  
  
  Robert,
  
  OUTSTANDING !!!!
  
  These CH 9 videos are THE BEST STUFF we have ever seen ... we have done a lot of video and these are so ad hoc and natural that they truly tell the "inside Microsoft story" and showcase the people behind the scenes !!!
  
  CONGRADULATIONS for you and all of the CH 9 team for some absolutely FANTASTIC perspective that no Press Release will ever be able to capture !!!
  
  GET MORE EXECUTIVE INTERVIEWS as well who can frame the strategy for all of us "believers".

• 

  Great preview, thanks. Can you outline how has the Meeting Workspace changed both in terms of SharePoint and Outlook integration? 

• 

  Good to see and hear about the new version of SharePoint.  This seems to be about WSS only.  Will an SPS version be released at the same time with the same features?

• 

  I haven't watched the video yet (saving it for bedtime so I can dream in v3) but I was wondering if you have tackled the biggest problem my company has in using SharePoint for managing any real business data, relationality (is that a word?). Basically if we want to associate a product with a customer in a many-to-many association, we have to work outside the system. The entry forms, display and everything are perfect for our uses (as well as the web services), but until we can have data relationships that are as complex as most business data, all  the 'lists' remain isolated stovepipes of data reducing their usefulness dramatically.
  
  Anyhoo, just wondering (and hoping). We're about to craft an entirely new CMS system by hand because our existing one sucks, and if V3 supports this sort of data it would save us a lot of time (early adoption?).
  
  Thanks!
  
  James White
  james.white@daddario.com
  www.daddario.com
  
  
  

• 

  A lots of very cool stuff, thanks How easy to upgrade from Sharepoint v2 to v3? Any nice info more for www.clubsps.org

• 

  Could somebody tell me if Sharepoint 2005 is 508 compliant?
  
  I am preparing for a medium sized project and wanted to use dropdown-menus similar to the ones on Sharepoint 2005.
  
  But if I use them, how do I make them 508 compliant as a lot of the positioning and appearance will be using CSS styles.
  
  Plus the fact that the menus will be covering other items on the page.
  
  Thanks Guys, looks great by-the-way!
  
  Tom
  

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  Here's a feature my company would love to see. Upload an Excel file, be able to access it as data/list items etc without having to instantiate Excel on the server or anything like that. That would be incredible cool.

• 

  Dustin Miller has a great Sharepoint report here: http://www.sharepointblogs.com/dustin/archive/2005/09/14/3503.aspx

• 

  Everything looks great but I would like to know when the release date is expected and what documentation is presently available. I support a very large WSS implementation and we need real information concerning the internal changes and what it may affect. Any upgrade to a newer version, even with major improvements can be extremely difficult especially with our customized web parts

• 

  Expect to see more details once Beta 1 is finally released.  Till then, I have to leave it to PJ and clan to speak on the specifics.

   

  I for one, am very excited about what's coming Just wait

• 

  scobleizer wrote:

  We will definitely be doing more Sharepoint stuff.

  
  
  Great vid although I think you focused too much on blog and wiki stuff which is probably of little benefit to most Sharepoint users.

• 

  ok, it took me a while, but I finally managed to watch this video.
  
  First of all: the next version looks awesome!
  One quick question though. You guys mentioned the version history of lists. Will this include version history of stored documents aswell? I mean, when somebody changes i.e. a word documents that is stored in a list, will the old version of that document still be available?
  
  Anyhow I'm really looking forward to dive into SPS2005. Any chance on a date for a beta or something?
  
  

• 

  Been working with SharePoint for some time and it's cool, but a lot of features seem missing. For instance, I would definitely feel the need for end users to be able to personalize WSS sites too. Why can they not get that feature?
  
  Also, at the portal level, be able to show data from any area without having to go through FrontPage and manipulate a lot of code and data. Ex. I needed to have a end user be able to show a Document library from one area to another, and it was just not possible. I could insert a data view using FrontPage, but it is not the same as getting a web part of the document library.
  
  Also, would like to be able to manage and create new alert settings for end users as Administrator. It is possible to manage alerts that end users have already created, but how about if an admin wants to setup new mandatory alerts for end users? There is no such feature in v2?
  
  Will these features be available in the next version?
  
  How can we join the beta testing group for v3?
  
  Thanks a lot guys.

• 

  First of all, thanks for all the comments. Just wanted to let you all know that in addition to this channel9 video (and hopefully others), I'm blogging about WSS v3 at http://blogs.msdn.com/pjhough
  
  I'll also be blogging on the http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint blog with other members of the SharePoint team.
  
        ..P.J..

• 

  Do you have any plans for adding a chatroom within a wss site similar to what WebCt does for it's classroom sites?
  
  Thanks.
  
  Carlos Gomez
  Miami Dade College

• 

  Uhh, screw that.  Blogs, RSS and wiki matter more than simple refinement to Sharepoint.  Attention needed to be given to architecture which MSFT seems to be addressing. 
  
  Right now, Sharepoint is only useful to my team as a means to maintain Project Management information.  Everything else is rudimentary and there is currently little modularity.  I'm hoping RSS usage will improve modularity although I'd like to see how this affects permissions issues.  Ok, can RSS be used as a means to publish list information to other Sharepoint sites or is this just my imagination?
  
  Umm, Wiki stuff is pretty important for Knowledge Management in the enterprise.  I'm rolling out Atlassian Confluence (Wiki) to my team but am curious to see how Sharepoint will compete.  If  competitive, I'd like to migrate to Sharepoint if possible but we'll see.  Keep in mind, I'm an employee for one of Microsoft's largest customers.
  
  I'm down for blog action although it's not as important as Wiki for my team...
  
  I'd like to see integration with BEA Plumtree Portal (Or whatever they call it these days....) but probably won't see that as it's a competitor with Microsoft's Portal offering.  Guess 3rd party integration is the best hope.
  
  I really wish it were easier to collaborate with externals (outside the enterprise / firewall) with Sharepoint.  Maybe it's politics or licensing issues, but it's not easy to do.  So we're forced to utilize other collaboration technologies which can't be expensed to overhead.  Cmon guys, help me out
  
  Oh, and can you guys (and gals) pay more attention to Web 2.0 principles?  Can we try to create virtual folders by means of tagging?  I hate having to move a file in one folder when its context could also apply to other descriptions as well.  This is why tagging works.  Check out Gmail tagging.... You could implement this in MSN Live Mail too.  How about Outlook?  I know, your response is.... But people aren't ready for virtual folders yet.!?#  Umm, follow Vista's lead and combine some conventional folder action with virtual folder action.  Give it a few years, then get rid of conventional folders.  Oh, and do this while satisfying any SOX or other regulations.
  
  Thanks,
  Dave
  
  

  Litespeed wrote:

  scobleizer wrote:We will definitely be doing more Sharepoint stuff.

  
  
  Great vid although I think you focused too much on blog and wiki stuff which is probably of little benefit to most Sharepoint users.