Thanks to everyone who attended the Windows Vista and Office SharePoint Server 2007 Search session at the Boston Launch event on Wednesday. 

Enterprise Search and Desktop Search are important topics these days; make sure you have all of the information you need to make an informed decision.  Things like privacy policies, out-of-box support for security trimming, and your ability to control the search technologies using policies are important aspects of search that are not to be overlooked.

If your organization is in the New England area and is thinking about enterprise search, feel free to give me a shout to discuss your options.

If you're at all interested in the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Windows Vista, or Exchange Server 2007, be sure to check out the launch events being held all over the country.

Attendees will receive a free copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and Microsoft Office Groove 2007. 

There will be a number of breakout sessions (I will be speaking at two of these -- search and records management).  You can also test drive the products and evaluate their functionality, network with peers, and meet local technology partners.

Sign up here:  http://www.microsoft.com/business/launch2007/signup/default.mspx

When you publish an InfoPath form to MOSS 2007 (or forms server) through administrative mode, you can point to the form via a URL so that users can fill out the form from virtually anywhere. You can also do things like set a redirect page so that when the user is done filling out the form, the browser redirects the user to a workflow initiation screen or some other useful location.

Here are the query string parameters that control behavior in InfoPath Web Forms:

XsnLocation - What form to open and from where

XmlLocation - What initial data to use

OpenIn - Open in browser / client / either

SaveLocation - Save Location for data

Source - Navigate URL when form is closed

Example:   http://MOSS2007/_layouts/formserver.aspx?xsnlocation=/formservertemplates/loanapplication.xsn&openin=browser&source=http://redirectpage

I get a lot of questions regarding the specific capabilities of SharePoint depending on what flavor is chosen. This spreadsheet does a great job of providing an at-a-glance feature matrix for:

• WSS 3.0
• SPS 2003
• MOSS 2007 for Search
• Office Forms Server 2007
• MOSS 2007 Standard CAL
• MOSS 2007 Enterprise CAL
• MOSS 2007 for Internet Sites

It breaks down the features by collaboration, portal, search, content management, forms, BI, management, and platform.

It seems that every other day I have a discussion with someone on the topic of Rich Desktop vs Web 2.0 (also known as Smart Client applications vs Web applications, Rich vs Reach, and several other names).  The idea is that browser-based applications are getting good enough that you don't need locally-installed software. I've tried living on web-only versions of certain applications -- I never want to try that again.  The power of having rich user interfaces, offline data, and complete use of the local processing power is something I do not want to live without. That doesn't mean that web applications aren't good - they come in handy sometimes.

Specifically, I like the approach that provides a rich, reach, and mobile version of an application. 

For example, Outlook is available as:

• Office Outlook 2007 (best option, period - fast, works offline, search is amazingly good, etc)
• Outlook Web Access (great for getting a nice form factor when I don't have my laptop)
• Outlook Mobile Access (great when I only have my Windows Mobile phone)

Looking at these three options for email, I realize that I use the rich client about 70% of the time, the mobile client about 25% of the time, and the web client about 5% of the time. That varies for applications outside of email -- for example, I use the rich IM client (Office Communicator) about 90% of the time, the mobile client about 10% of the time, and never use the web client.

Steve Richards does a good job of explaining why he prefers his desktop over a pure Web 2.0 environment: http://steves.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/12/8/2559313.html

I echo his sentiment that "...web 2.0 is a complement to the desktop, not a replacement."

What do you think?  Will Web 2.0 take over completely?  I can't possibly see giving up my rich experience to browser-only applications.

I've been using a variety of collabortaion tools lately that have drastically cut down on the number of emails I send and receive each day.

For example, I've been using Groove to exchange PowerPoint decks with my colleagues. It's great for large files since only the diffs get synchronized and I always have the files I need locally.  And Groove syncs with SharePoint, so when I get my updates completed, everyone within Microsoft can find my new deck via SharePoint's enterprise search.

I've also been using Office Communicator to IM with folks both inside and outside of Microsoft rather than volleying a half-dozen emails back and forth.

But I think I still get too many emails, as is evident by my most recently received message...but at least I still have 1MB of space left. 

Thank you to those of you who attended today's architecture council meeting!  We had a fantastic discussion on composite application architectures and the capabilities provided by the 2007 Office system. 

My slides are available - click here to download.

It's interesting to see these software trends continue.  We discussed three key concepts:

1) more agile software - business solutions developed in minutes rather than months

2) the productivity tier - designing software to accomodate ad-hoc and people-centric processing rather than just structured workflow

3) further levels of abstraction - we've abstracted away disk access, operating system functionality, programming frameworks, and now with SharePoint, database table structures and data binding logic.  What's next?

Until next time,

Scott

The next architecture council will be held on December 11, 2006 from 10:30am to 3:30pm.

I will be speaking at 11:00am on Composite Application Architectures using the 2007 Office System.

Here's the rundown:
The 2007 Office System isn’t just a great set of products; it’s a tremendous application platform that supports industry standards and provides key application and integration services.  Learn how the features in Office Enterprise 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 enable great solutions as part of an overall composite application architecture.  This session will cover common architectural patterns and the core services provided by Office and SharePoint.

For more information on the arcCouncil and arcStream, check out Bob Familiar's blog.

Hope to see you there!

When building applications to solve a specific business need, I'm a big fan of using the 2007 Office System as a base platform.  Why?  If you're building a web application, it often takes a lot of code and will still limit user functionality. If you develop a rich UX application, it will serve the user better, but it's one more application that the user has to learn and use to get their job done.

With an application built on top of the 2007 Office System, you can do things like let the user stay in their preferred application - say Microsoft Outlook, for example.  This is an example of an Office Business Application (OBA).  OBAs are an emerging class of applications that connect users to exising LOB systems through the familiar Microsoft Office interface.

For a great example, check out the OBA Reference Architecture Pack for Supply Chain.

What do you think?

Thanks to everyone who attended last week's Beyond TechEd events!  Here's the full set of slides:

Core Infrastructure Optimization

Infrastructure Optimization

Best Practices for Secure Messaging

Longhorn Server

SMS and MOM Overview

Deployment in an Hour

Microsoft Office System – Business Productivity Optimization

Business Productivity Infrastructure Optimization

Office Client Overview

SharePoint Overview

2007 Office System Development

Exchange 2007

Unified Communications

Application Platform Optimization and Developer Productivity

Business Intelligence

dotNetFX 3.0

SQL Server Developer Productivity

BizTalk 2006

Thanks to those of you who attended the EMC/Microsoft 2007 Office System developer events!  You can download my slides here.

Thanks to everyone who attended last week's Beyond TechEd events.  Here are the slides (most of them anyway...the rest will follow shortly):

2007 Office System Development

Business Intelligence

Exchange 2007

Longhorn Server

Office Client Overview

Office System Track Overview and BPIO

SharePoint Overview

SQL Server Developer Productivity

Unified Communications