What is SharePoint?

If you are a techie, you probably already know what SharePoint is.  If not, SharePoint is website building software.  Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  It is.  SharePoint is software created and maintained by Microsoft to create and manage websites.  What kind of websites?  All kinds.  Big sites and small sites.  English sites and multilingual sites.  Simple sites and complicated sites.

SharePoint can be used to build internally facing websites for organizations.  Websites for staff only,  Intranets, Department websites, Team websites, Project websites, Time tracking websites, Inventory management websites, Charitable Contributions websites, Business Intelligence solutions, Portals, and much more.

SharePoint can be used to build public facing websites.  Public facing websites are sites that don’t require you to login.  You can build websites for your company, your brand, your organization, foundation, trade show, convention, meeting, store, hotel, or any other site you want.   There are thousands of sites on SharePoint, like Ferrari, ISACA, Ohio U Alumni, Australia’s Southwest, Barilla, Choose Chicago, and of course, The Library of Congress

SharePoint can be used to build other types of sites as well: Social Network sites, Professional Networks, Extranets, Communities, Portals, Document Collaboration, Wikis, Blogs, Calendars, Project Management sites, Club Sites, Home Owners Association sites, school sites, soccer team sites, government agency sites,  and so much more. 

If you are looking for really simple intros into SharePoint, hopefully this will help some.  If you are a techie, Microsoft has some great information on their many websites.   

Marketing stuff: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/default.aspx
Developer stuff: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/default.aspx
IT Stuff: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee263917.aspx#tab=1

By John Stover

John Stover Bio.

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