SharePoint 2010 is the biggest and most important release of SharePoint to date. When paired with Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 will transform efficiency by connecting workers across a single collaboration platform for business
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer October 2009
In SharePoint 2010, there are significant upgrades to features that appeared in earlier versions as well as some exciting new features. Lets look at a few.
1. Integration with Microsoft Office
SharePoint 2010 does a much better job of integration with Microsoft Office
SharePoint 2010 has much tighter interoperability with Microsoft Office, including Word, PowerPoint and OneNote. Office files can be easily uploaded, modified and published in SharePoint 2010. Word and PowerPoint have always been relatively easy to convert into SharePoint pages but now in SharePoint 2010 you can also use Excel Services or Visio Services to publish spreadsheets or diagrams for browsing.
Branding in SharePoint 2010 has been made easier by revamping the way themes work. SharePoint 2010 themes are now compatible with PowerPoint themes. More often than not, companies will now be able to import existing PowerPoint themes to apply the fonts and colours of the corporate brand.
2. User Experience
The new 'ribbon' allows users to easily find and select relevant actions
In SharePoint 2010 we see a much improved user interface especially around online editing. Users can, with one 'click', edit content and see a preview of changes as they are being made. There are many more opportunities for developers and designers to integrate other products such as blogs, wikis and business applications.
SharePoint has always been a versatile platform for a vast range of intranet and internet sites with an focus on group collaboration sites. Now SharePoint 2010 has greatly improved and expanded those capabilities. Now it:
- has more flexibility and capabilities
- has a much improved user interface
- does a decent job of implementing multilingual sites
- has a much improved online editor
- supports the easy use of Wikis
3. Read/Write to Line-of-Business Applications
Through Business Connectivity Services, SharePoint 2010 supports full read/write capabilities with back systems and tools, allowing users to easily access and make changes to disparate systems.
4. Mobile Connectivity
SharePoint 2010 provides a synchronised offline experience
With SharePoint 2010, users can access and view in full fidelity any site, web part or content using a host of mobile devices or microbrowser.
5. Enterprise Management
SharePoint 2010 has a full complement of management tools and reports
SharePoint 2010 has a full complement of management tools and reports, a developer dashboard to track the performance of pages as well as monitors and alerts on logos and events. It also features a new Web Analytics service. A centralised 'health analyser' interface provides a farm-wide dashboard.