SharePoint Designer Free - Part 2

The following seems to prove it:

• http://www.sadev.co.za/node/339
• http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2009/03/13/sharepoint-designer-free-as-in-beer.aspx

But we will have to wait tw0 weeks to be 100% sure.

SharePoint Designer vNext

SharePoint Designer was heavily criticised for its WorkFlow limitations. Specifically those around redeployment. The answer was to use Visual Studio 2005/2008 or go for a third party product such as K2 or Skelta.

I predict that the SharePoint Designer vNext will be split into two versions. They are:

• SharePoint Designer
• SharePoint Designer for Workflow

SharePoint Designer vNext will be better (I know it's not hard) than the current version and will borrow from the Expression suite.

SharePoint Designer for Workflow will as the name suggests be a dedicated GUI package for creating workflows.

I predict some of the vendors who have made money from "low end" workflow products will exit the market. However the bigger guys will use it as an opportunity to focus on other areas of BPM.

SharePoint Designer 2007

Word on the (SharePoint Street) is that SharePoint Designer 2007 will be free from 1 April 2009. I'll post more details when I get more info. I hope that Microsoft fix some of the bugs in the product first.

I would rather use a beta of Windows 7 every day than SharePoint Designer for 10 mins.

SharePoint and FAST

In the next 12 months you could see the search market significantly change. You may say it is already changing and you’ll be right. I see Yahoo usage reducing further. They may even stop developing search. Microsoft will get more than a foot in the door with regards of Enterprise Search. With their acquisition of FAST I thought it would take 2 years before we saw anything useful from them. However they have just announced (http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/02/10/microsoft-unveils-new-enterprise-search-road-map.aspx) that SharePoint vNext will have “high-end search capabilities of FAST ESP”. WOW

What I want now is Microsoft to acknowledge those of us who have a real interest in metadata, search, taxonomies, etc and release an exam. They hinted here https://www.quickstartmicrosoftsearch.com/login/signin.aspx there would be one but so far no sign of it.

Oh and I shouldn’t talk about search without mentioning Google. Yes they are the leaders of search but they don’t have the whole package.

Channel Islands SharePoint User Group

If you work on SharePoint in the Channel Islands why not join the Channel Islands SharePoint User Group http://www.sharepointgroups.org/cispug/

European SharePoint Best Practices Conference

The first SharePoint Best Practices Conference in Washington, DC in September, 2008 was an overwhelming success. The First European conference promises to be just as popular. Go to http://www.sharepointbestpractices.co.uk/ for more details

The Typemock Insider Blog: Announcing Isolator for Sharepoint : Unit testing for sharepoint made easier (and a free license!)

The Typemock Insider Blog: Announcing Isolator for Sharepoint : Unit testing for sharepoint made easier (and a free license!)