Microsoft SharePoint

SharePoint is a web-based, collaborative platform that integrates with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and usage varies substantially between organizations.

SharePoint Server

SharePoint Server is provided to organizations that seek greater control over SharePoint’s behavior or design. This product is installed on the customer’s IT infrastructure. IT has access to a wider set of features and customization capabilities. There are three editions of SharePoint Server: Standard, Enterprise, and Foundation (free) which was discontinued in 2016. These servers may be provisioned as normal virtual/cloud servers, or as hosted services.

SharePoint Standard

Microsoft SharePoint Standard builds on the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation in a few key product areas.

Sites: Audience targeting, governance tools, Secure store service, web analytics functionality
Communities:‘MySites’ (personal profiles including skills management, and search tools), enterprise wikis, organization hierarchy browser, tags and notes
Content:Improved tooling and compliance for document & record management, managed metadata, word automation services, content type management.
Search:Better search results, search customization abilities, mobile search, ‘Did you mean?’, OS search integration, Faceted Search, and metadata/relevancy/date/location-based refinement
Composites:Pre-built workflow templates, BCS profile pages.

SharePoint Standard licensing includes a CAL (client access license) component and a server fee. SharePoint Standard may also be licensed

SharePoint Enterprise

Built upon SharePoint Standard, Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise features can be unlocked simply by providing an additional license key.

Extra features in SharePoint Enterprise include:

Search thumbnails and previews, rich web indexing, better search results.
Business intelligence integration, dashboards, and business data surfacing.
Power Pivot and Performance Point.
Microsoft Office Access, Visio, Excel, and InfoPath Forms services.

SharePoint Enterprise Search extensions

SharePoint Enterprise licensing includes a CAL component and a server fee that must be purchased in addition to SharePoint Server licensing. SharePoint Enterprise may also be licensed through a cloud model.