What Is SharePoint?

According to Microsoft, SharePoint - the short name for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server - is "an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management and enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for better business insight. Additionally, this collaboration and content management server provides IT professionals and developers with the platform and tools they need for server administration, application extensibility, and interoperability."

Basically, SharePoint's another product from Microsoft that some IT person must set up and administer so that its users can access information stored on that server. Using SharePoint, you can set up lists of contacts and other information, create calendars, share documents, and have discussions on a message-board-style interface. SharePoint is Microsoft's vision for sharing information, and Access is fully capable of utilizing SharePoint to share and manage this information.

In order to use SharePoint, you must have access to a SharePoint server. If you work for a medium- to large-size organization, chances are good that it might have one or more SharePoint servers used for collaboration. If not - and if you can't afford the cost of installing and maintaining your own SharePoint server - you can rent one from a number of SharePoint hosting sites. Just open your favorite Internet browser and search for SharePoint hosting. Then get out your credit card and start sharing.