SharePoint Origins

In 2001, Microsoft released SharePoint Portal Server 2001. The intent was to provide a customizable portal environment focused on collaboration, document management, and knowledge sharing. The product carried the “digital dashboard” web part technology a step further to provide an out-of-the-box solution. SharePoint Portal was the product that could link together the team-based websites that were springing up. SharePoint Team Services was a separate product that offered a subset of features of the “Portal” product.

Having two separate products with similar names confused many people. “SharePoint” was often discussed in a generic manner, and people weren’t sure whether the topic was SharePoint Portal or SharePoint Team Services, or the two technologies together. Then, in the 2003 version of the SharePoint products, Microsoft developed Windows SharePoint Services as the engine for the team collaboration environment. Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 replaced SharePoint Team Services, and it included many new and enhanced features, some of which were previously part of SharePoint Portal Server 2001. Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 was also included as an optional component to the Windows Server 2003 operating system at the same time.

SharePoint Portal Server 2003 remained a separate server-based product. It built upon the Windows SharePoint Services technology platform and was intended as an enterprise solution for connecting internal and external sources of information. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 allowed the creation of portal “areas,” searching across multiple sites, and enabled the integration of business applications into the portal.

These versions of SharePoint integrated more closely with Microsoft Office 2003 products, making it easier for users to leverage SharePoint 2003 features without leaving the comfort of the Office 2003 applications. For example, users could create meeting and document workspaces directly from Office 2003 products. Most Office 2003 applications also included the Shared Workspace Task Pane, which allowed users to see information stored on the site if the document they were editing was opened.

When the SharePoint 2007 products were released, many organizations already had experience with the first and second iterations of the products, and were eagerly awaiting the “v3” products, knowing that the product was even more mature and that many new features had been added. The SharePoint 2007 family includes SharePoint Server 2007, and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, and abandoned the often confusing term Portal from the product title. The “v3” SharePoint products also continued the trend of close integration with Office products, and although they work well with Office 2003 products, are optimized for use with Office 2007 products. Microsoft also broke out a key component from the server product, and made it available separately: SharePoint Server 2007 for Search. Microsoft also introduced a set of features that were only available when the Enterprise features were activated during or after the SharePoint Server 2007 installation process: primarily Excel Services, Business Data Catalog, and Web Based InfoPath forms.

Source of Information : Sams - Windows Server 2008 R2 Unleashed