SharePoint 2009 and SharePoint Conference 2009

2009 looks to be a big year for Microsoft, release-wise. The very promising beta of Windows 7 has just been released and Office 14 should be out towards the end of the year.

This gives credit to the rumor that the next version of SharePoint is due to be released in the fourth quarter of this year. There is no official statement from Microsoft which confirms neither when the next release is due, nor what it will be called, but SharePoint 2009 is probably a good bet.

 

SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas!

Moreover, the next SharePoint conference is not held in March as usual; it’s been slated for Q4 as well! As you may know, the conference normally swaps between Europe and the US and since last year’s conference was held in Seattle one would assume that this year a return to Europe would be in order.

But one would be wrong in that assumption. A very good source has revealed that the conference will stay on American soil (i.e. Las Vegas). This ties in nicely with the coincidental release of SharePoint 2009. Microsoft obviously want to throw the release party (the conference) of their top products (Office, SharePoint) on their own turf

 

New Features in SharePoint 2009

Likely new features in SharePoint 2009 are:

• Master Data Management
• 64-bit architecture only
• More use of Silverlight in the UI
• Tighter integration with Groove

In addition, I sincerely hope that Microsoft are rethinking the database architecture behind SharePoint. Most developers are acutely aware that biggest hurdle for SharePoint world domination is the way SharePoint handles relations and large quantities of data.

 

SharePoint 2007 Service Pack 2

Before version-next we’ll probably see another service pack for SharePoint 2007. Service Pack 2 will bring a number of improvements to the client-side Office applications as well as a few to the server:

• Variations: Performance and manageability improvements including STSADM commands for repairing links between source and target pages
• Office Project Web Access: Improvements around processing status approvals from Office Project Web Access into Office Project Professional 2007
• Content databases: Improvements to read-only content databases and index rebuild timer jobs in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Not terribly exciting but more features may materialise before the update hits Microsoft’s download servers.