Eli Robillard's World of Blog.

When SharePoint 2003 was released, the biggest gripe of its champions was the the near-total lack of documentation. With MOSS 2007 we're just on Beta 2 and Microsoft already has a wealth of developer documentation, online training, and Virtual Labs.

I completely recommend the Virtual Labs; these are actual virtual machines hosted by Microsoft, not scripted Flash stuff. Which means that in addition to working through the step-by-step lab manuals, you can veer off the track at any point, click around to your heart's content, and really understand how it all fits together. Because hey, that's how we learn best.

[Office 2007 Learning Portal]
[Google Office SharePoint 2007 "virtual labs" at Microsoft.com]
[Office 2007 Preview Site]
[Get the Beta]

"Virtual PC 2004 is now completely free and now opens up a new realm of possibilities.

Even better news for corporate customers who have Software Assurance on their client OS will be that on top of getting Vista Enterprise with free Virtual PC, they will be allowed to run up to 4 instances of the OS on their system at no extra cost. Now a developer can test on different platforms or ensure that their tests are run against systems that mimics the production systems. They can also use a virtual environment for legacy application development and testing. Check out the Windows Virtual PC site for more details on the announcements."

Whether you're a coffee shop or a systems integrator, it's all about the HR. The best thing about working at ei is the people. Seven of us (and I'm sure to be forgetting someone -- Ken, Dmitri, Luis, Thom, Rod, Ali, and myself) presented to a user group at one time or another this past year on topics across the MS spectrum (Toronto .Net User Group, Metro Toronto .Net User Group, BizTalk User Group, Toronto SharePoint User Group, Toronto CodeCamp, and elsewhere). Three of us (Rod, Luis and myself) are active in running three of the groups. And this is without any prodding from the company, we're all people who just like to do this stuff. I never quite sat down and thought about it before but wow, strange bunch.

I owe a special thanks to Ken Wong who came to the TSPUG meeting last month to walk everyone through the new features of MOSS 2007. Just a day before the meeting I thought "hey, Ken is already involved in a couple of MOSS 2007 projects, I bet his demos would be cooler than mine." Not only was I right, but Ken managed to scrape his calendar and make it happen. Over the long weekend Ken started blogging, and right from the first post you know it's going to be a good one.

Good news for all those itching to get MOSS 2007 up and running -- Beta 2 will be upgradeable to RTM! This is a shift from earlier guidance, which recommended waiting until the Technical Refresh (end of summer/early fall).

That said, there is no "Go Live" licence for Beta 2, meaning it isn't recommended or supported to use Beta 2 in a production environment, unless it's plain to all involved that the instance exists for evaluation purposes. Why? To set appropriate expectations. Until the TR, the Technology Adopter Program (TAP) remains the only path to deploying MOSS 2007 for production. Or, you can bring in a great MS partner like ei to smooth the path.

But back to the good news. If Beta 2 will have a supported migration path, then there isn't stopping you from, say, trying it out at any given IS/IT shop for day-to-day evaluation. Given how superior WSS3 and MOSS are to their able predecessors, it's a free boost in productivity. It's like getting a free summer student, minus the post-hazing human rights hearing. From what I've seen, Beta 2 runs stable, the only hiccups you'll notice are the features that aren't quite code complete and/or optimized. And, it's summer. You have two months of relative peace before business goes back to overdrive in September. Take advantage of the lull and edumecate yourself forward. C'mon, you know you want to. Get the Beta.

Reference:

[Upgrade path from Beta 2 to RTM]

[MOSS 2007 Known Issues]