Kick Start ECM Pilots on MOSS 2007

Microsoft has announced that they are preparing to release a set of 40 SharePoint V3 application templates. These application templates are great for helping users to envision the possible content-centric solutions that can be built on the next generation of the SharePoint platform.

Although these templates are not really “ready for prime time” full blown applications, they provide an easy way to gather consensus with end users and to demonstrate the possible business scenarios which can easily be addressed with SharePoint.

Once folks “get it” then the templates serve as a starting place for developing full blown ECM applications on SharePoint. I’ve known about these new templates for some time but had to wait until Microsoft went public. When they become available, I highly recommend trying them out. I have used the SharePoint v2 templates and found them very useful.

If you have any suggestions for other business scenarios you would like to see in a new template, let me know and I will  make sure the right folks at Microsoft get your suggestion. Enjoy

Technorati tags: MOSS+2007, SharePoint, Microsoft, ECM

Oracle Buys Stellent: I Was Wrong – They Didn’t Buy Open Text

Hat tip to John Mancini over at ECM Industry Watch. Oracle announced after the market close that they are acquiring Stellent for a cash tender offer for $13.50 a share. Add that up and you get $440 million.

Oracle said the acquisition will complement and extend its existing content management solution portfolio, and is expected to close by the end of the year or early 2007.

Well, what will this mean for Stellent customers? Not sure. Oracle is hosting a media conference call on Monday, November 13, 2006, to outline its enterprise content management strategy. I will try and listen in.

What does this mean for Oracle? Well, they don’t have worry about taking Records Database to the JITC for DoD 5015.2 certification since Stellent has been certified against this standard. Oracle conspicuously fell off the testing schedule this past year and rumors were that there was some missing DoD core functionality. They can now leverage the sound Stellent records management product for compliance with DoD 5015.2.

What is really unclear is what the repository model will look like. Will Oracle replace the Stellent repository with Content Database and Records Database?

Technorati tags: Oracle, Stellent, ECM, reocrds+management, DoD5015

Breaking News: Microsoft and Novell Make Joint Announcement

I am listening Steve Balmer from Microsoft along with Novell in a press conference in San Francisco. The announcement implies that the two operating systems, Windows and Suse Linux will be able to coexist in customer environments thorough new interoperability that will be provided by both vendors. This includes work they are doing for virtualization.

Whoa! Steve Balmer saying that “Microsoft will be working on interoperability between Windows and Linux”

Sounds like they will be building a Virtual Server that will run on Linux so that Windows applications can run on a Linux box.

Another piece that is important for BetterECM is building translators for documents between Open Document and the Windows Open XML format so that customers will have transparent interoperability for documents. 

Hmmm…Does this mean there could be a way for customers to have an integrated SharePoint and Alfresco solution within their Windows and Linux environment?

 Update: Here is the link to the Microsoft announcement.

Technorati tags: Open Source, Linux, Microsoft, SharePoint, Alfresco, Novell

Breaking News: Office 2007 and Vista to Launch November 30th

Finally after over three years! Microsoft has announced Office 2007 (including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007), Vista, and Exchange 2007 will launch November 30th at an event in New York City.

According to an InfoWorld article, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Steve Ballmer will be on hand for the event according to an email invitation sent out today. The event will be held at the Nasdaq Stock Market in midtown Manhattan.

Technorati tags: MOSS+2007, Microsoft, Vista, Office 2007, SharePoint

MOSS 2007 Security, Compliance, Server Hardening, and IP Protection Resources

Joel Oleson just posted a great set of resources over at the Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Team Blog which lists Webcasts, other Blog posts, presentations, and white papers and other content which cover different security topics on Office SharePoint Server and WSS v3. I am a regular reader of Joel’s Blog and he is always a good source of SharePoint information. The following is the link to the post.

Technorati tags: MOSS+2007, WSSv3, security, compliance, Microsoft