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In an interconnected, competitive global environment, organizations of all sizes and all industries face pressures to improve customer relationships, drive innovation, improve operations, and build high-value partnerships. Microsoft believes that the best way to achieve these goals is by empowering people to do more in their roles by connecting them better to the people, processes, and information they need to do their jobs.

Today,  despite many organizations’ considerable investments in both information technology (IT) systems and human talent, results can still fall short of  expectations. That’s because a gap exists between the types of structured,  predictable processes that are supported by traditional IT solutions and the  real work that people do day-to-day in terms of finding and sharing  information, working together in teams, and performing routine tasks that  rarely justify dedicated IT investments to automate.

These sorts of unstructured activities are not as easy  to measure as transaction-based work, so it can be hard to recognize how  ineffective processes in these areas can slow innovation and customer-facing  processes, produce errors, inhibit teamwork and information sharing, cloud  visibility, reduce morale, and generally squander the organization’s investment  in both people and systems. Also, because few IT systems have focused on trying  to solve these problems in a strategic way, IT decision makers have been forced  to view them as discrete processes to be solved with stand-alone systems such  as portal sites, search engines, business intelligence (BI) systems, and  content management solutions, rather than a single problem of organizational  productivity requiring a comprehensive IT investment strategy.

Solving  the productivity problems inherent in complex, collaborative information work  is therefore both a business priority and a strategic IT challenge. Microsoft  offers a solution that meets the needs of both the business and IT with a set  of integrated software products, servers, and services that comprise a business  productivity infrastructure. The business productivity infrastructure streamlines  the way people do business with Microsoft Office by providing  capabilities to support unified communications, business intelligence,  enterprise content management, and search, built on a secure, well-managed  infrastructure, and offering an extensible platform for the rapid development  of Office Business Application services. An optimized business productivity  infrastructure also provides IT with a more flexible and easily adopted set of  technologies to support the changing needs of business units and business users  quickly and at lower cost, demonstrating the strategic value of IT as it  relates clearly to the work people do every day.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing   comprehensive content management and enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for   better business insight. Microsoft SharePoint Server supports all intranet,  extranet, and web applications across an enterprise within one integrated   platform, instead of relying on separate fragmented systems. Additionally, this collaboration and content management server provides IT professionals and developers with the platform and tools they need for server administration,   application extensibility, and interoperability.

Manage content and processes

Simplify compliance efforts and keep business information more secure through   a comprehensive set of tools to manage and control electronic content.   Streamline the everyday business processes that are a drain on organizational   productivity by using electronic forms and out-of-the-box workflow processes   that users can initiate, track, and participate in through familiar Microsoft   Office applications, e-mail, or Web browsers.

  • Control documents through detailed, extensible policy   management. Define customized document management policies to control access   rights at a per-item level, specify retention period and expiration actions, and   track content through document-auditing settings. Policy integration with   familiar client applications makes compliance transparent and easy for   employees. Integration with Information Rights Management helps ensure that   proprietary and confidential information is better protected even if it is not   connected to a server.
  • Centrally store, manage, and access documents across the   enterprise. Organizations can store and organize all business documents and   content in one central location, and users have a consistent mechanism to   navigate and find relevant information. Default repository settings can be modified to add workflow, define retention policies, and add new templates and content types.
  • Simplify Web content management. Provide easy-to-use   functionality to create, approve, and publish Web content. Master Pages and Page Layouts provide reusable templates for a consistent look and feel. New   functionality enables enterprises to publish content from one area to another   (for example, from a collaborative sites to a portal), or to cost-effectively   manage multilingual delivery of content on multiple intranet, extranet, and   Internet sites.
  • Extend business processes across the organization. Forms Services are driven solutions make it possible to more securely and accurately collect information both inside and outside the organization without coding any  custom applications. This information can then be integrated easily into   line-of-business systems, stored in document libraries, used to start workflow   processes, or submitted to Web services, thus avoiding duplicate effort and   costly errors resulting from manual data entry.
  • Streamline everyday business activities. Take advantage of workflows to automate and gain more visibility into common business   activities such as document review and approval, issue tracking, and signature collection. Integration with familiar Microsoft Office client applications, e-mail, and web browsers simplifies the user experience. Organizations can easily modify the out-of-the-box processes or define their own processes using  familiar Microsoft tools such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer or Microsoft Visual Studio development system.

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Improve business insight

Effectively monitor business drivers, empower better informed decisions   throughout the organization, and proactively respond to important business   events.

  • Present business-critical information in one central   location. Create live, interactive business intelligence (BI) portals that   assemble and display business information from disparate sources by using   integrated BI capabilities such as dashboards, Web Parts, key performance   indicators (KPIs), and business data connectivity technologies. Centralized   Report Center sites give users a single place to find the latest spreadsheets,   reports, or KPIs.
  • Quickly connect people with information. Enterprise   Search in Office SharePoint Server 2007 incorporates people and business data   along with documents and Web pages to provide more comprehensive results. The   Search Center provides a single integrated location for employees to find   content, processes, people, and business data relevant to their specific needs.   This enables people and organizations to make decisions based on the latest   information and facts more quickly.
  • Share business data broadly while helping to protect   sensitive information. Excel Services running on Office SharePoint Server   2007 provides access to data and analytics in real time, interactive Microsoft   Office Excel spreadsheets from a Web browser. Use these spreadsheets to maintain   and efficiently share one centralized and up-to-date version while helping to   protect any sensitive or proprietary information embedded in documents (such as   financial models).
  • Take advantage of your unstructured business networks to   drive better decisions. Employees can use new knowledge management tools to   get the most from their powerful unstructured business networks, both inside and   outside their organizations, thereby connecting with people more quickly and   efficiently. By exploring these undocumented business relationships and finding   subject-matter experts, individuals are able to make better decisions more   quickly.
  • Unlock business data. The Business Data Catalog enables   structured data from line-of-business applications, such as SAP and Siebel   systems, to be integrated into Office SharePoint Server 2007 through Web Parts,   lists, people profiles, search, or programmatically. Centrally managed   connections to back-end systems can be defined once and then reused by end-users   to access back-end data without writing any code — easily making business data   part of portal content. The Business Data Catalog also provides the ability for   Enterprise Search to integrate back-end business data into the search   experience, without having to write any protocol handlers, iFilters, or custom   code.

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Simplify internal and external collaboration

Share knowledge, find information, and collaborate more easily and more   securely both within and across organizational boundaries. Leverage your partner   and customer network, and use your personal networks to connect to other people   effectively.

  • Enhance customer and partner relationships. With smart,   standards-based, electronic forms–driven solutions, you can collect business   information from customers and partners through a Web browser. Lightweight   Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) integration and support for other pluggable   authentication providers makes it easier to work with non–Active Directory   directory service sources, thereby simplifying extranet setups and facilitating   tighter connectivity with customers, partners, and suppliers.
  • Ubiquitous Enterprise Search. Enterprise Search in Office   SharePoint Server 2007 has great relevance and incorporates enterprise content   such as people and business data, along with documents and Web pages, to provide   more comprehensive results. Enterprise Search is ubiquitous in Office SharePoint   Server 2007, with tight integration into SharePoint sites, Web Parts, SharePoint   lists, people profiles, and more. This enables people to look for the   information they need wherever they navigate within the portal. Enterprise   Search has the capability to search through business data, and the search   results can be highly customized; for example, surfacing specific metadata   elements of back-end records.
  • Work when and where you want. With offline access to   SharePoint lists and document libraries, via Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, you   can free yourself from limitations of corporate network connectivity. Tight   integration with Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007 further enhances the   offline experience for users.
  • Connect and share knowledge. New knowledge management   tools empower employees to create and use people networks, both inside and   outside their organizations, so they can connect and share knowledge more   quickly and efficiently with other people.
  • Personalize operations. My Sites provides a totally   personalized experience for users, with a dedicated site for each user. Each   site can be used to store, present, view, and manage content, information, and   applications in a controlled fashion. Each site can also be used to present   information about the user, such as skills and roles, colleagues and managers,   groups and distribution lists the user belongs to, and documents the user is   working on. And each site contains stringent privacy control and enhanced   security mechanisms, so that each user can choose how much information to   present, and to whom. My Sites can also be fully customized to suit individual   requirements.

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Empower IT to make a strategic impact

Increase responsiveness of IT to business needs and reduce the number of   platforms to maintain by supporting all intranets, extranets, and Web   applications across the enterprise with one integrated platform.

  • Get enhanced interoperability support. Office SharePoint   Server 2007 is built on a scalable architecture, with support for Web services   and interoperability standards including XML and Simple Object Access Protocol   (SOAP). Office SharePoint Server 2007 also has rich, open application   programming interfaces (APIs) and event handlers for lists and documents. This   enables integration with existing systems and provides the flexibility to   incorporate new non-Microsoft IT investments. LDAP integration support for other   pluggable authentication providers makes it easier to work with non–Active   Directory sources. Out-of-the-box WSRP Consumer Web Part enables integration   with other WSRP-compliant portal solutions.
  • Enable IT to focus on more strategic tasks. Users can now   create sites, initiate workflows, self-provision applications, access back-end   data, define security at a per-item level, restore deleted items, and complete   other tasks without involving IT. This reduced user dependence on IT improves   productivity and also enables the IT department to focus on providing real   value-added services to the organization. With the Business Data Catalog, you   can define and deploy business application configurations to access data   residing in back-end systems. This feature can be reused by business users to   create personalized views of business data without having to develop any custom   code.
  • Simplify deployment, management, and system   administration. Managing a Web server farm, deploying new pieces of content,   and managing synchronization across those sites is now much simpler. Deployment   can be done in “top-down” or “bottom-up” fashion. Simplify site staging through   out-of-the-box Site-starter Templates for common Web sites, with Area and Page   Layout templates and preconfigured navigation. And enhanced capabilities to back   up and restore content helps IT professionals schedule backups, back up   multisite collections, and then restore each one individually.
  • Robust system monitoring, usage tracking, and monitoring   tools. These tools help isolate and solve problems faster and improve the   operational efficiency of the system infrastructure.

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Related Technologies

Portals and Team Sites

Microsoft SharePoint Server

Microsoft SharePoint Foundations

Microsoft Dynamics

IBM Websphere Portal

SAP Portal

Email Communications

Microsoft Exchange Server

Business Process Applications

Microsoft Office

 

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