While Microsoft's Office team has been focused on getting the Office 2007 (code-named Office 12) desktop suite out the door in late 2006, other parts of the Information Worker unit have been preparing parallel releases of many server products. A more powerful version of SharePoint Portal Server, the first appearance of a Microsoft server for Groove, and new servers for managing electronic forms and project portfolios will augment desktop productivity software with tools that enable Office users to better collaborate with each other and locate critical corporate resources or business intelligence.

(For a description of the packaging, naming, and pricing for the next version of Office, see "Office 2007 Suite Packaging Announced".)

SharePoint Changes

The SharePoint products include Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), a Web site hosting and collaboration service of Windows Server 2003, and the SharePoint Portal Server product for corporate portals and enterprise search. (In the next release, SharePoint Portal Server will be called SharePoint Server 2007, dropping the word "Portal.") These products are the hub of the collaboration strategy that has been the headline attraction of recent Office releases. They will see many significant changes, including enterprise content management features, a new Web design tool based on FrontPage technology, spreadsheet management, forms publishing, and a new Internet Edition.

Enterprise content management features. SharePoint Server 2007 will deliver expanded capabilities for managing publication of Web content, taking over the role of the Content Management Server product, which is being discontinued. SharePoint Server also improves capabilities for managing a wide range of business documents and records. Search capabilities will be enhanced, permitting users to look for specific data, such as current sales information or a list of personnel resources, even if that information is located in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) or human resources system.

SharePoint Designer will replace FrontPage as the solution for customizing WSS and SharePoint Server sites and can also be used to design Web pages and workflow projects (based on the Windows Workflow Foundation). FrontPage will be discontinued, but its technology is used in SharePoint Designer as well as in the upcoming Expression Web Designer product for public Web sites.

Server-based Excel Services will enable server-side spreadsheet recalculation, publishing, and reporting.

Business application data, such as data from an SAP ERP system, can be stored in SharePoint Server 2007 and used by other resources. For example, server-based Excel spreadsheets will be able to contain live links to data in a business data catalog, ensuring that published spreadsheets include the most recent information.

Electronic forms compatible with Microsoft's InfoPath forms client and common Web browsers can be created and stored on SharePoint Server and managed through workflow processes running in the SharePoint Server workflow engine.

An Internet Edition of SharePoint Server will let customers make the full feature set of the product available via public Web sites.

A new licensing model will make its debut when the new Office servers are released, and the most detailed information about this model, which could be applied to other servers, currently is available only for SharePoint. The new model includes differentiated Client Access Licenses (CALs) that license different levels of SharePoint Server functionality. The two types of CAL, Standard and Enterprise, replace the single CAL that is currently required for each user or device accessing SharePoint Portal Server.

The Standard SharePoint CAL will give customers access to SharePoint's workflow, document management, and personalization features. The Enterprise SharePoint CAL will be required to use the business data features, advanced features related to electronic forms, and Excel services.

(For a detailed description of the CAL changes, see "Client Access Licenses Split Server Features".)

New Servers

One new server and two acquired products will make their appearance around the time that Office 2007 is released.

Office Forms Server 2007 provides much of the same functionality that the electronics forms capabilities of SharePoint Server 2007 will offer, but this server will be simpler and cheaper than SharePoint Server. It is intended for organizations that want electronic forms management but don't require SharePoint Server for other portal and Web site creation and management services.

Project Portfolio Server 2007 is based on a product Microsoft acquired from UMT and can be used to track an organization's major projects against a common set of business metrics and goals.

Groove Server 2007 will combine several acquired gateway and management products for Groove Virtual Office, Microsoft's product for peer-to-peer collaboration.

No changes were announced for two other servers that are part of the Information Worker group, Exchange and Live Communications Server (LCS), although Microsoft did indicate that the next versions of these products will be licensed with two tiers of CALs.

(For a current snapshot of the Exchange, LCS, and SharePoint roadmaps, see the Mar. 2006 Enterprise Software Roadmap.)