Microsoft Gives Sneak Peek of SharePoint 2.0 At Fusion 2002

The future portal server, which Raikes called SharePoint 2.0, will offer support for .NET and enhanced collaboration. Sharepoint 2.0 will feature SharePoint Team Services 2.0, integration of robust Windows Media multimedia technologies and an enhanced search function that allows users to search by people and team sites, Raikes said.

Team Services 2.0 will also be integrated with two other key channel products, Microsoft's next generation Office 11 and Small Business Server, due to ship in 2003, Microsoft officials said.

Microsoft has sold 7 million seats of SharePoint Portal Server during its first year on the market. It is a popular product among channel partners with more than 600 Sharepoint solutions from 300 partners currently on the market. Raikes said the next version will be optimized for channel partners with templates that solution providers can customize out of the box.

It is the key product that will be pitched to solution providers as Microsoft's Intranet and Portal Go To Market solution. Microsoft said Friday it will try to jump-start its channel's sluggish business by launching 18 integrated Go-To-Market campaigns for selling .Net solutions.

Raikes said intranets and portals, business intelligence, work management and knowledge worker connectivity to line-of-business applications are the key Go To Markets in the business productivity segment.

In an earlier keynote, newly-appointed Microsoft channel chief Allison Watson estimated the business productivity opportunity for the channel as a $3.2 billion business in FY03. Watson said Microsoft plans to make available both enterprise and SMB portal solutions over the next year. Currently, SharePoint is included in Microsoft's Solution for Intranets solution offering, one of a handful of Microsoft MSOs on the market.

One solution provider involved heavily in SharePoint development, ISC of Tallahassee, Fl., said during the show that one of his biggest business wins is a multi-million contract with the Florida House of Representatives to build a portal application using SharePoint. "I'm here to see what I can find out about next version of SharePoint," said Mark Alexander, president of ISC, which is still working on the SharePoint application.

Raikes also touted the upcoming Tablet PC and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition as innovations for the next form factor on the market, a "convertible" full function laptop to add value. He pointed to the faster, more precise handwriting recognition, Windows Journal feature, electromagnetic pen and erase function and "snippets" as key differentiators of the Tablet PC operating system. Snippets, for example, allows end users to draw a circle around a text or object and e-mail it, Raikes demonstrated. The Microsoft Group VP also noted that the Tablet PC will be popular among all corporate users since it can be easily used during meetings. "It's the smartest .NET client," Raikes said.

Raikes also pushed solution providers to push Office XP and the XML Web Services toolkit as well as the forthcoming Office 11 due next year and said he was working hard to establish an Information Workers Solution Group.