SharePoint 2010 RTM

Last Friday, April 16th, Microsoft released SharePoint 2010 to manufacturing.  Welcome to the next few years of your life!

The nitty gritty: Volume license customers will be able to start ordering and obtaining the bits starting next week. MSDN and TechNet will see the bits then, as well. The official launch is May 12th, which will feature live and online events around the world. 

Microsoft also released the Office client application suite, Visio and Project, last week as well.

And, on April 21, Microsoft released SQL Server 2008 R2.  SharePoint 2010 requires SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2, but certain features work only on SQL Server 2008 R2, including Access Services reporting and PowerPivot.  General availability for SQL Server 2008 R2 is May 13.

I’ve been working closely with SharePoint 2010 for quite a while now, as you know, and I could not be more excited that the community now can start the big push to deploy the product. There are gigantic improvements in architecture (for example, service applications), features (managed metadata and Office Web Apps near the top of a very long list), manageability (Windows PowerShell, OMG), scalability (list throttling, hello!), and, well, I will throttle my own list of reasons to upgrade because that information is easy for you to come by on the web. 

The bottom line is that SharePoint 2010 is a “no brainer” from a business value and manageability perspective. In fact, last week I was very lucky to have a client decide that a project that was already in prototype and beta on MOSS 2007 could be rebuilt on 2010.  It will pay off for them, big time, and I think it will for you, as well.

Of course, it’s not all sweetness and love.  There are a few places where you’re likely to stub your toes, and we’ll be back to work next week to help you avoid those problems.  Until then, happy SharePoint farming!