http://www.sharepointjoel.com/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=246

I completely agree as Sharepoint is both a repository-backend of so many items (documents, data, tasks, calendars) and also a gateway to many others (ERP, other apps).

Are their self-exposing objects (lists, entities) enough for SOA?

Just food for thought ...

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=52245

Sharepoint rules, other adapt

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/08/prweb1248414.htm

In delving further into the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 it came to me that Sharepoint could badly need the Dynamics CRM development model of custom entities as it would allow to create DB based transactional type of applications at which Sharepoint isn't ideally suited.

http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1275-Is-SharePoint-the-end-of-(portal)-history

MOSS is a platform, everybody knows it by now.

Lately I came to think that to be a "Total Sharepoint Consultant" one has to know so many things besides knowing Sharepoint (Install, Config, Dev, WebDev, Admin):

• Admin (Windows, SQL Server, AD, IIS, DNS, Firewalls, Security, SSO)
• Dev (.NET -VSTO, Office OMs like Excel, Outlook, Infopath)
• Web (ASP.NET, CSS, Javascript, Ajax, Silverlight)
• Tecnologies (RDBMS, Business Intelligence)
• Domain (Document/Records Management, Search)
• Other Products (Exchange, CRM) for integration

In' sure I forgot a few, but to be average knowledgeable on all these, 8-10 years experience are needed.

Is the next version of Sharepoint + SQL Server 2008 going to be the real WinFS?

you get transactional (SQL Server 2008) file storage with FILESTREAM + transactional NTFS with Windows 2008 + metadata and search with Sharepoint

From the Sharepoint 2008 Conference KeyNotes by Bill Gates (http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/exec/billg/speeches/2008/03-03SharePoint2008.mspx)

"So in the next version of SharePoint we take a big step in terms of being able to put a table in, and have all that SQL capability, or be able to take a lot of those list-type features and have those against tables"

Nice to see that Sharepoint MOSS 2007 is a Enterprise 2.0 innovation.

http://www.cio.com/article/183200/Enterprise_._Five_Innovations_the_CIO_Shouldn_t_Miss

http://cio-asia.com/PrinterFriendly.aspx?articleid=7520&pubid=5&issueid=129

Jeffrey says Sharepoint is not a good development platform

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeffrey.palermo/archive/2007/09/13/sharepoint-is-not-a-good-development-platform.aspx

Andrew and Sahil say

http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2007/09/24/6116.aspx
http://blah.winsmarts.com/2007-9-SharePoint_is_a_terrific_development_platform.aspx

My opinion

Sharepoint is not an easy development platform  for newcomers and for one-off projects, it takes a few to get into the "Sharepoint Way", but allows integration with all sort of development tools (source control, testing, even Monad).

Sharepoint IS the best application platform around - especially for content(document) enabled applications (Gartner calls them CEVAs - content enabled vertical applications), with lots of pre-built funcionality and a huge number of APIs to be reused.

Unrelated posts

Sharepoint TDD (Test Driven Development)
http://www.harbar.net/archive/2007/03/28/quotTest-Drivenquot-SharePoint-Development.aspx

News are out that IBM - Lotus is giving away free Lotus Stuff to compete against Sharepoint.

It seems IBM - Lotus wants to forcefully get Sharepoint & Exchange protocols for pennies through the EU antitrust courts.

Seems yet again IBM - Lotus doesn't want to compete in the marketplace on vision, technical merits, features, customer satisfaction or pricing but only using ideology (ABM, Open Source) and general scheming (antitrust lobbying, legal action).

Which is good for Sharepoint customers, partners and MS itself, as it means IBM is desperate and is losing badly vs Sharepoint.