What Software Do You Need?

SharePoint was designed to be used by different types of members with various responsibilities. Each team member's software needs depend on his role, as shown in Table 1-3.

Table 1-3. Software needs for different team members

Role

Responsibilities

Software needed

Administrator

Creates team sites, adds members

Web browser, Remote Desktop Connection utility included with Windows XP Professional (recommended)

Designer

Designs pages on site, creates site templates

FrontPage 2003

Contributor

Adds documents, lists, tasks, announcements, etc.

Office 2003

Contributor with data entry

Completes InfoPath forms

Office 2003, InfoPath 2003

Reader

Views sites and documents, but does not make changes

Office Reader

Programmer

Creates custom web parts

Visual Studio .NET,

FrontPage 2003, InfoPath

Where's the server software? Actually, you don't need physical access to a SharePoint server to create or manage SharePoint sites. All those tasks can be done remotely from your own PC by viewing one of the administrative web pages in the browser. So, you have a few choices for how to get a SharePoint server:

  • If you don't want to own and operate your own server, you can purchase SharePoint services on a monthly basis from an Internet Service Provider (ISP). This is a simple and inexpensive way to try SharePoint out. In fact, Apptix offers a free 30-day trial at http://www.sharepointtrial.com/welcome.aspx.

  • If you want your own server, you'll need Windows 2003. SharePoint is part of Windows 2003, so you can configure the machine as a SharePoint server using the Windows setup procedure.

  • If you plan to create an enterprise-wide web portal based on SharePoint, you'll probably want to purchase multiple servers and buy a SharePoint Portal Server license from Microsoft.

Warning

SharePoint is not compatible with Office 2004 for the Macintosh. See Appendix A, Office Version Compatibility for a list of features supported with various versions of Office.

Get SharePoint Office Pocket Guide now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.