Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (SharePoint Conference 2009)
First let me apologize for the lack of blogging for a while. We have been under the gun with a sizable SharePoint development project. I have gown farther down into the innards of InfoPath then I ever thought possible. To give you an idea, we worked over 140 hours in the 2 weeks prior to the conference. I promise to be better, and now I have good reason to do so:
We at Syrinx just got back from a long week loaded with sessions, booths, experts, and information all about SharePoint 2010. All I can say is *WOW*. I predict the trend of SharePoint adoption to continue to to climb at an alarming rate.
I'm sure everyone is out there blogging about all the new features, and that's great! I'm just going to run down the high-level features from the sessions I attended and information I gathered. This is no way an exhaustive list, but as I dig into the new capabilities I will blog about them.
SharePoint Online / Sandbox Development and Testing
SharePoint 2010 will be offered in a software-as-a-service mode with WILL allow custom coding via a sandbox mode that runs in a protected state.
Business Connectivity Services
The evolution of the BDC is bi-directional and uses entities for direct connectivity with LOB applications / databases.
REST
This was one of the coolest features added to SharePoint due to the addition of WCF. SharePoint content can be quickly accessed via simple HTTP and it will return XML or JSON. This could prove very interesting.
Office 2010 real-time collaboration
Office 2010 fully supports real-time collaboration with robust features to sync and protect data while allowing users to work together on documents at the same time.
SharePoint Workspace
Gone is Groove, and here comes SharePoint Workspace. You export whole sites and all their content onto your desktop, see changes, sync versions, etc.
Visio Services
Bring your Visio diagrams to the web and treat the elements as assets in code allowing you attach business logic to these diagrams to visualize LOB data in diagrams in real-time.
Access Services
Create entire applications in access and "convert" them to SharePoint web applications with simple synchronization.
RIP Shared Service Provider
Now we have Service Applications that are independent and available to any web applications and even to other farms!
Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint Support
New project types and deployment options are going to make this a lot easier for developers.
SharePoint Designer 2010 and much improved workflow
SPD 2010 was overhauled. Amongst other things is the ability to build reusable workflows, export them into Visual Studio, and package them as WSPs for deployment.
Windows 7 and Vista Development Supported
Now you can develop on workstation-grade operating systems.
FAST Search Integration
FAST is now fully embedded into SharePoint as an optional upgrade. And it is AWESOME!
I will try to explore and blog about each of these in detail as I test, play, and learn from the beta releases of SharePoint 2010 in the coming months!
It was a great conference and I am truly excited about what is to come!
-Ryan