SharePoint is a platform that addresses a wide range of business needs: Collaboration, Portals, Enterprise Search, Enterprise Content Management, Business Forms, and Business Intelligence. A recent Info-Tech study found that 54% of organizations that decide to implement SharePoint do not consider any other vendor solutions in the decision-making process. SharePoint is built on the .NET framework, and is a logical choice for .NET shops. Because of this factor, the big decision that must be made when it comes to implementing SharePoint is the version, not the vendor. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) is the version that comes included with Windows Server 2003 (previous release WSS 2.0). Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) is the version that enterprises must purchases licenses for (previous release SharePoint Portal Server 2003). The two most popular MOSS Client Access Licenses (CALs) are Standard and Enterprise.
SharePoint Version Adoption
Despite the fact that WSS comes free of charge for most enterprises, many are still opting to purchase MOSS. Adoption of the Server version is higher in enterprises deploying the solution for a larger number of users (see Figure 1 below).