The IT Pro’s job is to set up and configure the platform which requires, at a minimum, a firm understanding of hardware, virtualization, Windows Server, IIS, Active Directory, SQL Server and SharePoint (configuration and administration). With SharePoint 2010, PowerShell gets added to required skill list, unless you use a design and deployment product such as SharePoint Composer. >> Learn more >>

Network World - Is Free SharePoint In Your Future? Surprise! It's Already Here | With the recession, all of us are looking for ways to save dollars on software costs. Tools like SharePoint are not only a great collaboration and productivity tool for users, it can also be a very low cost alternative to developing software applications in traditional .NET, Java or other languages. You can be up and running on SharePoint in a very short period of time, often in the same day you start the install if your requirements are basic enough. That means both a savings in time and dollars, and is one of the reasons the SharePoint services part of my business is experiencing a big uptick. It seems everyone has frozen or reduced budgets, usually fewer people due to layoffs, but still the same plate of projects and responsibilities that must get done or be maintained. You may not have realized it, but there's a free version of SharePoint sitting right there inside your Windows 2003 or 2008 Server ready for you to use, at zero additional cost.

The core of SharePoint is something called Windows SharePoint Services, or WSS, and is included free with Windows Server 2003 SP1 and as a role in Windows Server 2008. No additional software license purchase required, no user CALs required. When most of us think of SharePoint, we think of the paid for version (license and CALs), SharePoint Server (Standard and Enterprise versions). But both SharePoint Server Standard and Enterprise simply add functionality on top of what WSS already provides. Some of the features not part of WSS, that are in SharePoint Server, may be critical to your needs, so a software purchase may be in your future. Or you may be able to start by using WSS and upgrade later to the more feature rich paid for version. Let’s take a quick look at what WSS provides to help get you started down the path leveraging SharePoint.

1. Collaboration: At its core, SharePoint is about enabling collaboration, which is why many of the collaboration features in SharePoint are part of the free WSS. Standard templates for setting up team sites, document workspaces, meeting workspaces, wiki's and blogs are all in WSS. Managing people and group lists, calendars, email integration, project tasks, surveys are there as well. Document collaboration, something that's essential in most collaboration situations I encounter, are in WSS for checking in and out documents, version number tracking, workflow processes, and auditing. Amazingly enough, all these things are included in WSS for free (with Windows Server 2003 and 2008) and can get you pretty far down the road with SharePoint. The collaboration features are the biggest area where WSS and SharePoint Server overlap.

2. Search: One of the most powerful features of SharePoint are its search capabilities. WSS provides basic search features to retrieve SharePoint content. What's not included are additional advanced search features, like searching other enterprise content sources (Exchange Public Folders, 3rd party repositories, and interfaces to 3rd party apps, called BDCs), search relevance for improving search, people search, and better indexing and administrative controls.

3. Content Management: Many of the content management features are part of the paid for SharePoint Server, but WSS still provides important, fundamental features like storing and archiving approved file types, access control and security, logging of actions, workflow processes to define expiration, and customizable policies. What WSS doesn't provide and SharePoint Server does are more sophisticated document workflow, templates for large document management sites, retention policies, integration with Microsoft Information Management Rights, content authoring, publishing and deployment (i.e. automated and scheduled content publishing, such as on a web site or portal.)

4. Handy Stuff: Things you'll want and enjoy as part of WSS are integration with Microsoft Office (Outlook, Work, Excel, PowerPoint and Access), user alerts, RSS feeds, automatic notifications, Web Parts for customizing pages, list indexing, document libraries and administrative features (backup and restore, for example.)

Other features only in SharePoint Server. | Probably the biggest feature you'll miss that SharePoint Server has over WSS are the portal capabilities. Beyond the basic team and document site pages, portals allow you to deliver individualized portals, distribution lists to users and audiences, and use more extensive portal Web Parts and templates. As you get into more internal, extranet, intranet and custom portal sites (such as for business intelligence or other uses), you’ll start to miss having SharePoint Server’s additional portal capabilities.

One of the big gains by upgrading to SharePoint Server is the forms capabilities. With InfoPath Forms Services, now a part of SharePoint, you can create a wide variety (and some pretty sophisticated) web-based forms, which can be used to create a wide variety of apps in SharePoint. There are also wizards for creating and importing forms, making it quicker to develop SharePoint forms-based apps. >> Learn more >>

SharePoint Daily » Blog Archive » Do-It-Yourself SharePoint Solutions; Microsoft Will Not be Out Innovated; Azure Cloud Services Come to Windows Server | Is it Friday yet? - Dooley. Top News Stories; SharePoint 2010 Composites: Do-It-Yourself Business Solutions (CMSWire) This is the final article in this series “What ... >> Learn more >>

Column Security Level in SharePoint? Do it yourself! | Help me on SharePoint, BI and Dynamics CRM is a place where you can find technical information about how to sort out issues with SharePoint, any version of it, BI ... Column Security Level in SharePoint? Do it yourself! | One of the common questions, that follows up the “SharePoint security model” chat, is the one asking for Security at Column level. Is it possible to add security at Column level? The answer is that you cannot set it up from the SharePoint UI out of the box. The UI, as we all know, is not the end of our options. It might be the end of our easy options, but there are other ways to answer this requirement using the SharePoint Object Model and its ListFieldIterator class. There is an article in MSDN showing how to create a custom form using the ListFieldIterator class but, I have to say, the article is missing some more detailed explanation about how are things wired together in the background, it has a few typos, or omissions, and there are some assumptions that might make it difficult to just make it work if you don’t have them clear in your mind. >> Learn more >>

Microsoft Developer Network - Create SharePoint 2013 no-code solutions | A SharePoint Composite is a no-code, do-it-yourself business solution that you can create quickly by assembling, connecting, and configuring the basic ... Learn about SharePoint Composites, a no-code, do-it-yourself business solution that you can create quickly by assembling, connecting, and configuring the basic building blocks of functionality available in SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013. A SharePoint Composite combines data, documents, and business processes in a useful, productive way. >> Learn more >>

SharePoint 2010 Composites: Do-It-Yourself Business Solutions | This is the final article in this series “What is this SharePoint Thing All About Anyway?” and in this article we are going to be looking at the concept of SharePoint Composites. Composites are a type of solution that allows you to pull together items from multiple applications to build a complete solution. In this article we are going to highlight some of the various types of things you can build using composites as well as provide an overview of the tools you will utilize. No Code Solutions | The biggest value of composite solutions is the ability to create no-code solutions. These solutions can be built by Information Workers without having to involve traditional developers. There is an endless list of the types of solutions that can be built using this method. The solutions built within organizations differ based on their specific needs, but typically can include the following types of no-code solutions:

• Project Management

• Help Desk

• Document Approval and Routing

• HR Onboarding

• Forms Management

Explore 64 apps like Microsoft SharePoint, all suggested and ranked by the AlternativeTo user community. >> Learn more >>

SharepointAlternative.com > Microsoft SharePoint Alternative: Compare SharePoint | Microsoft SharePoint Alternative is a comprehensive resource to help you evaluate alternatives to SharePoint. Find solutions within budget or other constraints.

Why do you need a Microsoft SharePoint Alternative? | You Don’t Need Microsoft SharePoint, You Need Collaboration Technology Today, executives are pressed from all quarters. New realities like outsourcing, off-shoring, distributed teams and telecommuting require them to work with distributed teams, vendors, partners and clients. On the other hand, business is increasingly information driven and “social” which necessitates a greater need for communication, collaborative teamwork and information exchange. This underlines the importance of collaboration technology for running an efficient business. At the turn of this century, enterprise collaboration became synonymous with Microsoft Sharepoint, because it was the most prominent solution around (There were “SharePoint alternatives” like HyperOffice around even then, but they didn’t have MS’s visibility and clout). However, SharePoint was crafted for a very specific segment - big businesses with thousands of employees and mega IT budgets.

Enterprise information technology has also advanced since then, most specifically the software-as-a-service approach, which allows SMBs access to big business on-premise software like MS SharePoint, through simply a net connection and at low cost. SharePoint has tried to keep up with the changes with its subsequent avatars – SharePoint 2003, SharePoint 2007, and SharePoint Online. Is SharePoint 2010, the latest version, any better? Well, "SharePoint 2010 may be overkill for some", says a recent Forrester study. Although SharePoint has whetted the appetite of businesses for enterprise 2.0 (the next generation of enterprise collaboration software), it fails to keep up, as Thomas Vander Wal famously said in his 2009 article. This is especially true for growing businesses. >> Learn more >>

SharePoint Alternative - Collaboration Software: Share-ware | HyperOffice leverages the software-as-a-service model to offer a viable SharePoint alternative to growing businesses - you get all the features relevant to your ... SharePoint Alternative | Fully cloud based alternative to SharePoint. Get all the features without the costs and complexity - document management, intranet/extranet workspaces, project management, workflows and more.

Why do You Need a SharePoint Alternative? | Whether it is SharePoint Server 2003, 2007, or its recent avtaar, SharePoint Server 2010, the costs and complexities of SharePoint are simply too much for most small and mid sized customers to bear. Even the terminology is enough to make your head spin - SharePoint Foundation, Server, Services, Portal, Sites WSS, MOSS! SharePoint requires expensive hardware, multiple SharePoint Server licenses, and "SharePoint experts" to install and maintain it. Costs often run into tens of thousands of dollars, and implementation runs into months. That is the reason many SMBs are looking for an alternative, and even enterprises are looking to replace SharePoint. >> Learn more >>

Open Source Alternatives To Microsoft SharePoint | Microsoft Sharepoint and IBM Lotus are the industry leaders in Enterprise Content Management systems. They have good support for Enterprise to have great Intranets. However, the recent Forrester report does have references to Open Source enterprise content management systems like MindTouch who are not far behind proprietary software.

Alfresco | Alfresco is (alternative to Microsoft SharePoint) a leading open source enterprise content management system built by the most experienced team in the industry drawn from Documentum, Vignette and Interwoven. Key features of Alfresco: Smart Spaces, Desktop File Access, Auditable Content, Workflow, Categories, Advanced Search, Administration, Web content management, Images, Collaboration tools. Alfresco maintains everything in a central, scalable repository making it easy to maintain. Alfresco provides Wizard based configuration. It has superior browsing and searching capabilities. All these make Alfresco a good alternative to Microsoft SharePoint. Alfresco Community Edition is free, available for Windows and Linux, and comes without any support. Of-course, you can buy the paid edition to get the complete support from Alfresco team.

MindTouch | MindTouch is an Open Source Enterprise Collaborative Networks and powers next generation intranets, extranets and knowledge bases. With MindTouch, you can do the following; Corporate Intranet, Product Documentation and Knowledge Base, Corporate Extranet, Web Dashboards – CRM. MindTouch was cited as a Forrester Wave Strong Performer and the best product alternative to Microsoft SharePoint and IBM Lotus.

Liferay | Liferay is a social collaboration solution for the enterprise. A complete workspace streamlines communication, saves time, builds group cohesion and raises productivity. Provides single sign-on and work the way you want to, at your convenience. Liferay Community Editions are free but without support. Enterprise editions are present with a price. Liferay Portal ships with broad product capabilities to provide immediate return on investment.

See more Open Source Alternatives To Microsoft SharePoint | >> Click here >>

10 alternatives to Sharepoint for small businesses | If you haven’t heard of Sharepoint, it’s an enterprise content management system which allows office users to collaborate and share information, manage documents, implement business process and more on a single platform for both intranet and internet pages. If you’re the owner of a small business who wants to put up an ECMS for your organization, you can consider the following 10 alternatives to Sharepoint for small businesses -

Atlassian’s Confluence is used for intranets, knowledge management and documentation by organisations from countries around the globe – across Fortune 1000, government, education, finance and technology sector. Confluence is available in two editions namely downloaded self hosted edition and one which is hosted by Atlassian. For official non-profit organizations, charities and open source projects, Confluence is free for use. Key modules include social intranet, technical writing, knowledge management and even Sharepoint integration.

EMC Documentum eRoom is an easy to use online team collaboration software that enables distributed teams to work together more efficiently. The Documentum eRoom is part of the EMC Documentum Standard Family which provides critical enterprise content management and control all your information assets. Key modules include document collaboration, collaborative business processes management, project planning and reporting, Microsoft Office / Outlook integration and more.

LotusLive is a collection of integrated, online collaboration solutions and social networking services for your business. LotusLive helps organizations bring people and information together quickly and simply in an easy-to-use environment, designed with security in mind. Key modules of LotusLive include LotusLive Engage (web conferencing, networking and productivity tools), LotusLive Connections (social networking, file sharing, instant messanging), LotusLive iNotes (webmail), LotusLive Meetings (online meetings)

Simple CSS | Mac, Windows - Simple CSS allows you to easily create Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) from scratch, and/or modify existing ones, using a familiar point-and-click interface. With Simple CSS, you can manage multiple CSS... Development, Online Services css, web-hosting, css-editor, cascading-style-sheets

See more >> Click here >>

IT Expert Voice > Replacing SharePoint with Open Source CMS(s) | Microsoft SharePoint 2010 offers a lot to businesses. SharePoint includes a content management system, search, wikis, the ability to build intranets and external Web sites, all in one bundled solution. However, it also comes with a steep price tag and a number of dependencies that businesses might want to avoid. The good news is that open source solutions like Alfresco, MindTouch, and Drupal can be suitable replacements for SharePoint in many organizations. Many businesses want the functionality of Microsoft SharePoint without the limitations and lock-in that come with building on a Microsoft platform. While SharePoint 2010 is undeniably a strong product, it has hefty system requirements and its use limits an organization’s IT choices in other areas. The only way to get full functionality out of SharePoint 2010 is by using Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Office 2010 on the desktop – upgrades your organization may not be ready to deploy.

SharePoint 2010 is a bit better than its predecessor in regard to vendor lock-in. SharePoint 2007 required ActiveX controls, shutting out everybody on Macs and Linux. SharePoint 2010 isn’t as restricted, and even works in a limited fashion on iPads and iPhones. Also, SharePoint 2010 also limits browser choice. While you can work with SharePoint 2010 with Firefox or Safari, they aren’t treated as “first class” browsers for SharePoint 2010. Only Internet Explorer (later than IE6, which has been rightfully deprecated) can exploit all of SharePoint’s features. Note that even some features in 2010 require ActiveX controls that are not available for 64-bit versions of IE.

Drupal | Drupal is not a drop-in replacement for SharePoint if you need a records management system. It’s not a enterprise content management system by any stretch. But for organizations that adopted SharePoint for intranets or building external websites, Drupal should not be overlooked. The Drupal CMS has scaled to power some of the world’s busiest sites. Drupal is used by the U.S. Federal government to power sites like Recovery.gov, but also can be (and is!) used by much smaller organizations.

The Drupal tagline is “community plumbing,” which is an apt description of the project. Drupal alone is useful for developing websites, intranets, blogs, and the like. However, Drupal’s real power is in its developer community and the thousands of modules that extend the CMS’ functionality. Your organization’s developers can extend the platform or simply take advantage of Drupal’s existing add-ons. With the modules on Drupal.org, you can add file management, e-commerce functionality, LDAP authentication; you name it, it’s probably been added to Drupal. It can be a bit of a beast to tame. Drupal’s user interface is, charitably, best described as “unintuitive.” This is something that’s been acknowledged by the Drupal community, and it’s one of the focal points of the Drupal 7 development cycle (which should be complete by autumn of this year). Drupal’s APIs are not universally loved by developers, either. In short, Drupal has its flaws,but it’s very widely and successfully used and for all manner of content management.

Drupal is written in PHP and licensed under the GNU General Public License. It runs on Apache or Microsoft IIS, uses MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Microsoft SQL Server, and PHP 4.4.0 or higher. Because the Drupal community has tried to push towards compatibility with PHP 5.x, many modules may require PHP 5.x or better even if Drupal runs on 4.4.x. Commercial support for Drupal is available through a number of vendors, most notably through Acquia, a company run by Drupal founder Dries Buytaert.

If SharePoint is part of your infrastructure, consider keeping it in check and using an open source solution for new deployments. Don’t try to rip and replace, but if you need a new Web site for the organization, use Drupal. Need a records management solution for a department not yet using SharePoint? Roll it out using Alfresco instead of SharePoint. >> Learn more >>

Microsoft Sharepoint Designer Alternatives and Similar | Popular Alternatives to Microsoft Sharepoint Designer.

Adobe Dreamweaver | Mac, Windows - Tool for building websites and applications. Adobe Dreamweaver software is intended for web designers, web developers, and visual designers.

phpDesigner | Windows - Powerful PHP IDE and PHP editor with built-in HTML, CSS and JavaScript editor. Fast. Powerful. Time-saving! phpDesigner 8 is more than just a powerful and lightning fast PHP IDE and PHP EDITOR - its also a... Development portable, programming, php-editor, php5, php-ide

HTMLPad | Windows - HTMLPad is sophisticated all-in-one HTML, CSS, JavaScript and XHTML editor. Features include FTP connectivity, HTML Tidy validator, spell check.