My New Years resolution was to try to be a little less techie here on the blog, so every now and then I get asked a question that I think is simply common sense only to be reminded that I may be too immersed in technology. With that in mind, I post the following reply to the question “What is SharePoint?” …

Microsoft SharePoint is a browser based collaboration tool which is part of the MS Office line of products. It allows people to share documents across the web using a SharePoint server or hosted sharepoint environment or sharepoint web hosting service.

Once shared in a common environement, the files may be checked out and edited by users at remote locations, modified, printed or saved locally before being uploaded again to the SharePoint server. It’s often partnered with exchange hosting, which provides companies with the ability to share Microsoft calendars and address books.

Simply put, a properly configured SharePoint server will allow Windows users to collaborate on documents, share Intranet and Internet resources, take part in surveys and tast lists. Mac users can not, to my knowledge use the tool at this point instead use the .Mac environment to accomplish similar tasks.