Blogger: Larry Cannell
I am attending the FASTforward 2009 Conference this week in Las Vegas, Nevada. An earlier post has details of what I have learned about Microsoft’s plans for integrating FAST search technologies in SharePoint. However, there are some things we can also infer about the SharePoint “14” release in general.
Here are some things about SharePoint “14” I’ve gleaned from demonstrations and announcements made at FASTforward:
- Browser-based document thumbnails and previews. I’ve seen a couple of screenshots showing document thumbnails and previews in a SharePoint site. This morning’s presentation showed a set of Powerpoint slide thumbnails within a browser on a SharePoint site.
- In a Q&A session at the analyst meeting yesterday, we learned the Business Data Catalog will benefit from the FAST search technologies, although it is not yet clear how. For those of you familiar with the BDC’s ability to aggregate business application data within SharePoint’s collaborative environment and FAST’s capabilities to work with structured data, this should get you thinking about some interesting possibilities.
- Tagging was mentioned in a SharePoint demo during this morning’s session.
- Expertise information (perhaps leftovers from the Knowledge Network beta pulled shortly before SharePoint 2007’s launch) also looks to be included in “14.”
Microsoft didn’t provide any hints on timing for the release of SharePoint or Office “14” but given the recent announcement of the SharePoint Conference 2009 to take place in late October I would expect to see a beta as early as November/December but more likely in 1Q 2010.
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