Share and Share Alike

And Microsoft is counting more than ever on its value-added partners to represent this fortuitous convergence of releases—including both the business edition of Vista and the Office 2007 releases (now officially known as the Office System). It has got some 250 related solutions in the works for the launch, according to Jeff Raikes, the Microsoft executive responsible for making sure the whole show goes on.

What is equally clear is that this will be SharePoint's moment to shine. During a meeting with CRN in New York last week, both Raikes and two partners that buddied up with him for some prelaunch interviews, repeatedly pointed to SharePoint as the big platform bet in the launch bonanza. Of the solutions already being prepped around the new releases, Raikes said about 40 percent involve collaboration and communication, 30 percent handle electronic content management and 20 percent build on portals and business intelligence applications.

Joe Fantuzzi, CEO of Workshare, a San Francisco ISV that concentrates on document and messaging compliance and security, said while many of his competitors have built their own workflow engines for handling incident management, his company's software will link into the new Microsoft offering. "SharePoint Server is visionary, and we'll exploit it," he said.

It hasn't escaped my notice that many Microsoft partners have been bringing up SharePoint lately—without prompting or leading questions from me—as one of the most promising tools in their technical arsenal.

I can't get all that worked up about Vista on its own, frankly. But what does get me excited is the prospect for the new era of collaborative solutions that it is bound to enable. Keep your eyes, also, on companies like Zimbra, the distributor of an open-source collaboration engine that is gaining visibility in verticals including education. And, by the way, Zimbra is looking to share the wealth by building a program for partners that can build solutions on its technology.

Share your experiences with collaboration solutions. HEATHER CLANCY, Editor at CRN, appreciates comments and tips at [email protected].