This week Microsoft has released SharePoint 2010 to developers and large corporates and Pentalogic Technology is pleased to be able to say "YES!", all of their SharePoint products are compatible with this eagerly anticipated new release. Anyone involved in the world of Microsoft SharePoint will know that it has been buzzing with anticipation of SharePoint 2010 for a good year now.
The first version of SharePoint was released by Microsoft in 2003 and since then, it has gone on to become their fastest growing server product ever – the centerpiece of collaboration and content management for many organizations large and small. Developers have had access to the public beta version of SP 2010 since November 2009 and companies like Pentalogic, who produce software for use with SharePoint, have been busily testing their products to identify what changes will need to be made in order for them to work on the new version of the platform.
"When you make software that works on a particular platform – whether it is Windows, SharePoint, or the iPhone – the introduction of a major new version is really exciting," explains Pentalogic MD Ryan Wheeler, "but it can also be very stressful. The introduction of a new feature might open up lots of new possibilities, but it could equally well present new problems for the way your own software works with the platform, or even make your application completely redundant."
"So we have been very active exploring SharePoint 2010 since the first release of the beta. We are very pleased to see that whilst there are lots of fantastic new features in SharePoint 2010 Microsoft haven’t introduced anything within the Out of the Box functionality that undermines our own products. For users of SharePoint 2010 our PivotPoint, Planner and Reminder will continue to add valuable planning, reporting and alert functionality to the Out of the Box offering," says Wheeler, "and we have also spotted some interesting new possibilities for product development."
"Over the past few months we have carried out extensive testing on all of our products in the beta version of SP 2010. There are some significant changes in this latest version of SharePoint and our developers have been busy making sure that our products function properly with these changes."
"This week we have had access to the final release version of SP 2010 and following some final testing we can now say with confidence ‘Yes! We are ready for SharePoint 2010.’ All of our products are SharePoint 2010 compatible." Says Ryan Wheeler, "SharePoint 2010 versions of all of our products are available to download from the website for existing customers who are upgrading to 2010 or new customers who are running or trialling a SP2010 deployment."
"Although there is a lot of excitement about SharePoint 2010 we know that many people won’t be upgrading overnight. We know 15% of our clients are still using SharePoint 2003. SharePoint 2010 only runs on servers with 64 bit processors. This means that anyone currently running on 32 bit servers will need to upgrade their hardware before they can upgrade to SP2010. Though this would be normal practice for many large corporate, for smaller businesses on tighter budgets it introduces extra costs and could be a potential barrier to upgrades."
"So whilst we are now fully SharePoint 2010 compatible, all of our products also remain compatible with all previous versions of SharePoint and we intend of continue to support all previous versions for the foreseeable future."
SharePoint 2010 will be available on general release in May. There are 8 versions and as yet Microsoft have made no announcements regarding pricing.
