SharePoint is definitely one of those products that is making a huge impact amongst corporations. The flexibility, features and out of box functionality that it provides is hard to ignore. Especially with all the Web 2.0 products (wiki, blogs, etc.) integrated into SharePoint 2007, its becoming a easier to sell to corporations.

We’re talking about an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help majority of organization, by using the following features:

• Collaboration
• Portals
• Enterprise Search
• Enterprise Content Management
• Business Process and Forms
• Business Intelligence

SharePoint 2007 is providing organizations with better insight into how they run their business. There is a report that you should check out, An Assessment Of Windows SharePoint Services. But for a decent whitepaper on SharePoint in general and the approach to take when considering it a solution, you should check out SharePoint for Business: A Six Step Strategy for Achieving Collaboration Success and Improving Business with SharePoint (22-page) is an independent white paper that investigates how to use SharePoint for business.

Here’s an excerpt from SharePoint for Business:

Microsoft SharePoint is garnering much attention in organizations, with Microsoft’s business partners, among the analyst community, and in the press. It is now a fundamental element of Microsoft’s Office suite and servers. The technology of SharePoint has improved substantially with the 2007 edition, but the question remains: How does an organization think about using SharePoint for business? There is a plethora of written material on the technology, features and technical installation and maintenance of SharePoint, but surprisingly little on the strategic side. This White Paper addresses the latter.

SharePoint for Business proposes a six step strategic framework for thinking about, installing, and driving business-oriented adoption of SharePoint within organizations. The six steps to to think about are:

1. Develop a vision on the business reasons for deploying SharePoint within your organization.
2. Get the technical implementation of SharePoint right.
3. Lead people to develop competence in the various tools available in SharePoint.
4. Develop shared agreements on SharePoint practices.
5. Avoid the pitfalls of earlier collaboration technology investments.
6. Cultivate the practices of collaboration.

I have received a copy for review, and thought it was a decent read. I’d recommend everyone to read it, however the $49 price tag might not make it possible for everyone.

So I’m going to include one copy of this report to the winner of my Book Giveaway: Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Pro Developer).  If you haven’t already, comment and get a chance to win a great book and one copy of this whitepaper.