Windows SharePoint Services Hosting

Windows SharePoint Services Hosting

Built on Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services also provides a foundation platform for building Web-based business applications that can flex and scale easily to meet the changing and growing needs of today's businesses. Robust administrative controls for managing storage and Web infrastructure give IT departments a cost-effective way to implement and manage a high-performance collaboration environment. With a familiar, Web-based interface and close integration with everyday tools including the Microsoft Office system, Windows SharePoint Services is easy to use and can be deployed rapidly. With Windows SharePoint Services Hosting, ISVs and service providers can provide rich Web applications based on SharePoint Web parts to their customers. This section provides guidance to help you begin implementing Windows SharePoint Services hosting in your environment.

Provide a Foundation for Web-Based Applications

With Windows SharePoint Services version 3.0, hosting service providers can tailor or extend the Windows SharePoint Services foundation to create new, efficient, Web-based tools and services specific to the organization, department, business process, or industry vertical. Through a highly customizable and extensible platform, these new tools and services let service provider enhance their existing service offerings by making it easier to add the following kinds of features:

• Management for business documents with enhanced document library support and a common repository for document storage.
• The capacity to to build rich, flexible, and scalable Web-based applications and Internet sites based on the Windows SharePoint Services platform to meet the specific needs of client organizations.
• Access to to quickly and easily customize SharePoint sites and build reporting tools and applications tailored to specific tasks without writing or deploying new code.

For more details on the advantages of using Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, see Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies.