FabriKam, FabriKam, FabriKam

What the hell is he talking about? Only a really cool leaning platform that we've been waiting for awhile now. The Office System Fabrikam Learning Platform is now available for pre-order. The documentation has been on MSDN for quite awhile but now we can order the real meal deal. Okay, so it's still not released but according to Mark Bower here, the DVDs are currently in production and should be shipping soon. 

FabriKam is a Virtual PC image that contain sample solutions and components for SharePoint, BizTalk, and Office 2003 with a mess of goodies that you can take and munge into your own. What's inside this package? Plenty. While you can learn about the Office System as a development platform it also contains a wealth of knowledge with best practices, white papers, code samples, etc.

What can you do with this cool tool? Looking at the documentation there are some great OOTB (out-of-the-box) solutions in the SharePoint space like a Routing Service, a Multi-Library List View Web Part (aggregate multiple document libraries into one view), and a Project Site Manager solution. These are showcased solution samples that are initially horizontal specialty applications that can be re-used, repurposed or extended by developers. In addition to the SharePoint goodies there are some SQL Server Reporting solutions (Expense Report, Team Weekly Status Report, etc.) and other solutions that tie into BizTalk and other Microsoft Technologies.

Be sure to get your DVD today! You can pre-order the DVD from here (no charge for the DVD, you just pay shipping) which should be shipping in about 2 weeks.