Making better products

Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 is now in vogue. I can see a lot of traction from companies and partners who want to build content management systems on MOSS 2007. It is also being increasingly used for collaboration portals and building Web 2.0 communities. MOSS combined with the power of Sivlerlight, flash and AJAX can give a site built on any technology a run for it’s money.

My last two projects have been on MOSS and providing a rich user experience and building a rich internet application (RIA) have been the core focus points. The original paradigm of using Sharepoint as an intranet facing portal is now rapidly changing. 

Below is a list of MOSS based internet portals and I’m trying to make a comprehensive list, so if I’ve missed out some site whic you are aware of, leave me a comment. I have added to some from here.

·  OBS

·  OBA Central

·  Bio Conservation

·  Bio Diversity Hot spots (Virtual earth integration)  

·  Alphamosaik (Partner - France, Multilingual)

·  HedKandi

·  ShareView.co.uk

·  CORGI (UK)

·  speakTECH

·  Paul Mitchell

·  Tyler Butler

·  Microsoft-Oracle

·  ThreeWill

·  EmpowerID Demo

·  Oasys (French)

·  InfoCision

·  Ruijin Hospital Group

·  UCB (Une societe de BNP PARIBAS)

·  Satama

·  Reveu-d-Etudes (French)

·  Formextern (French)

·  Cegos (Professional Services) (French)

·  Sharesquared

·  FIFTEEN

·  Guildford Grammar School

·  Australian Innovation (2007 Innovation Festival) by Eclipse Group

·  JTC Corporation (Singapore Government)

·  APAC SharePoint Conference 2007 by Microsoft Australia and Unique World

·  AATorque (New Zealand bro)

·  Wise Woman by CodeAndContent

·  Komatsu (by UniqueWorld)

·  Ditributed Logic Platform (Partner)

·  MyTalk (Southern Cross by HotHouse)

·  Hawaiin Air

·  Performance Food Group (by Dominion Digital)

·  Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust (AA Compliant)

·  Direct Energy

·  RBS Lynk (FSI)

·  McGrathNicol (by Dimension Data)

·  cScape

·  cScape

·  Games for Windows

·  WesternAustralia.com

·  Tourism Western Australia

·  Microsoft Flight Simulator Insider

·  Architecture Forum (Australia)

·  South East Water Limited (by SDM)

·  LivePoint (Partner)

·  EchoTechnology (by LivePoint)

·  Migros

·  Glu Mobile Games

·    Hawaiian Airlines

·  Virtual TechEd 2007

Microsoft plans at creating core infrastructure services like storage and alerts which developers can build on top of. This set of capabilities are being referred to as the Cloud OS, though it’s not a term Microsoft likes to use publicly. But this was hinted at by Brian Hall, Ballmer and Ozzie at the Worldwide partner conference in Denver.

This looks like the next big thing that Microsoft is working on, with Ballmer stating “”We are in the process today of building out a services platform in the cloud.”

Ballmer said that later this year Microsoft will deliver the first version of a set of developer tools to build on top of Microsoft’s Windows Live effort and noted that the tools will be based on .Net.

This looks like Microsoft is opening up more of their services and with the Web 2.0 trend of web services, looks like Microsoft wants to continue their presence on the web the way they have been ruling the desktop world.

Microsoft also previously  introduced two new Windows Live Services, one for sharing photos and the other for all types of files. While those services are being offered directly by Microsoft today, they represent the kinds of things that Microsoft is now promising will be also made available to developers.

Among the other application and infrastructure components, Microsoft plans to open are its systems for alerts, contact management, communications (mail and messenger) and authentication.

Beautiful graphic which shows the evolution of the Apple from factor from Apple I to the iPhone over 30 years from 1976 through 2007. This goes to show the improvements in usability and user experience in Apple products.

Check this Apple form factor evolution