Microsoft Office

From the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Blog: So here it goes…. I’ll summarize four very different SharePoint offerings, some of them you probably weren’t even aware were based on SharePoint. Just for fun, I’ll call them Mini, Small, Medium, and Large-SharePoint.

Mini-SharePoint

Office Live Workspace, believe it or not, is built on SharePoint but highly customized and simplified for the end user. The idea is simple – create a workspace (which is like a folder), add files to it, then share it with others. Create and share Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, pictures, notes, and custom lists with anyone you want. Or use it to share files between work and home, which is a lot easier than emailing files back and forth.

I’ve created one workspace to share files with colleagues, another workspace to share photos with family, and a third workspace to organize forms and schedules for my vanpool.

Find out more at http://workspace.officelive.com

Small-SharePoint

Office Live Small Business is also built on SharePoint but highly customized with Web features, Web applications, and Web site tools. It includes a Web site, multiple email accounts, and Web applications ideal for the small business with up to 10 employees. The Web site features allow you to create a site without knowing a thing about HTML, Web design, or Web creation software. Use the included Web applications to manage and communicate with employees and customers. For simple file sharing, use the Office Live Workspace included with your account.

My goal this year is to move my mom’s real estate practice to the Web using this service.

Find out more at http://smallbusiness.officelive.com

Medium-SharePoint

SharePoint Online, along with Exchange Online, Communications Online, and Live Meeting make up the new Microsoft Online Services. Rather than installing and maintaining SharePoint Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server, and other server software in your office, just sign up for this business hosting solution and let Microsoft do the heavy IT lifting for you. The service can handle up to 500 individual PC users. Just launch a Web browser, and you have immediate access to your entire business environment.

I would highly recommend this service to any small business that has outgrown Office Live Small Business but is too small to manage a SharePoint deployment.

Find out more at http://www.microsoft.com/online

Large-SharePoint

SharePoint Server (Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server). Last but not least, we have the actual SharePoint software in the box. For the large and enterprise organizations looking to deploy a completely customized and integrated content management solution across the organization, this is what you need. With SharePoint running on your corporate servers, you have complete control over your corporate Intranet, Extranet, and Internet presence, and you can build on the existing collaboration tools, managed business processes, and integration with Microsoft Office client applications.

This is what I use at work every day to communicate with colleagues, collaborate on projects, find critical business data, and actively monitor projects in my department and other departments.

Find out more at http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint

I hope this clarifies the various SharePoint offerings that you or your business can choose from.