SharePoint Abbreviations and Versions

You will hear these terms during your investigation of SharePoint. They are merely previous versions of MOSS 2007 :

• STS 1.0 – SharePoint Team Services

• SPS 2001 and 2003 – SharePoint Portal Server

• WSS 2.0 and 3.0 – Windows SharePoint Services (v3.0 is technically not a previous version of SharePoint as MOSS is based on the current WSS core functionality)

• MOSS 2007 – Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

• MOSS 2007/E – Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Edition

• SharePoint 14 – next release due out later this year.

Because you are new to SharePoint, I will assume you will be working with the latest version, MOSS 2007. That is the version I am working with (and started on), and will be blogging about.

Not all functionality you hear about is going to be available to you. Some vendors will only show you the Ferrari version when there is a Toyota version available as well. Yes you can have all the bells and whistles, but it comes at a cost. (This is Microsoft after all, lol).

You also need to know that even if you have a MOSS license, you will need Office 2007 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) to leverage some of the functionality available in that release. The Toyota version is WSS and Office 2003, the Ferrari version is MOSS 2007 Enterprise Edition and Office 2007.

So you could have Office 2007 with WSS, or Office 2003 with MOSS for example. The point is, you may not be able to see all the functionality we will talk about if you don’t have the latest greatest versions of the software. (You need to take this into consideration when planning to role out SharePoint in a large company, are all the computers spec’d high enough to run Office 2007; if not, you’ll need to take the cost of upgrading your hardware into account. There are many costs you need to be aware of for a medium to large company, consult a professional).

Where possible, I will explain the differences between using Office 2003 and 2007 on some of the SharePoint components. To view the full product line, click here.

Tip : WSS comes free with Windows Server, click here to download it.

Tip : Your best friend when learning abbreviations and terms is Wikipedia.

Tip : Go to Microsoft Office Online to view everything WSS and MOSS.

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