Latest Office and Exchange boost support for e-forms and remote
access.
Office 2003 offers cut-price portal software. Users could save
tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds by basing their
enterprise portals on Office 2003 rather than other software
products, according to analyst firm Ovum.
Portal software is gaining popularity among business users as it
offers IT directors a way to integrate enterprise software, while
at the same time providing end-users with access to shared
documents, as e-mail inboxes and calendars. A report from Ovum on
Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2003, published this week, said
Microsoft's product was good value for money compared with high-end
products from companies such as Plumtree, Oracle, SAP and
IBM.
Cassandra Nuttall, Microsoft product manager for Sharepoint Server
2003, said the product's main function was to provide users with a
browser-based interface for sharing information.
She said the new version was integrated with Microsoft's Outlook
e-mail client software and Instant Messenger software. With an
entry price of less than $5,000, (£3,400) Ovum said Sharepoint
offered a low-end but flexible portal product for small and
medium-sized organisations or departments that did not want, or
could not afford, more sophisticated document management and
enterprise portal software.
Ovum analyst Angela Ashenden said, "Searching for documents and
collaboration are extremely well supported in the Sharepoint 2003
server."
Another strength she highlighted was the ability for IT directors
to customise Sharepoint using Microsoft's .net framework and Visual
Studio .net development tools.
With a list price of $4,000 per server and $70 per user, a 250-user
licence for Microsoft's portal software would cost about $21,500.
The equivalent cost using an enterprise portal product such as
Plumtree Corporate Portal would be about $115,000 said
Ashenden.
She said the main benefit of the more expensive products was in
terms of out-of-the-box support for integrating enterprise
software. But she said, "Sharepoint is good product for businesses
that want to start small and build up, or for organisations that
need more flexibility compared to out-of-the-box
integration."
In September, high street retailer Marks & Spencer began using
the previous release of Microsoft Sharepoint Server to provide 600
staff with best practice guidelines, e-learning training material
and controlled access to allow staff to work collaboratively on
shared documents.