Top 10 Reasons to Deploy Windows SharePoint Services

Windows SharePoint Services takes file sharing to a new level.
Instead of just dumping files into directories, Windows SharePoint Services
supplies Web sites with document storage and retrieval with check-in and
check-out functionality, version history, custom metadata, and flexible,
customizable views. Users can find and share data, with the added assurance
that data will not be lost.

You can share many kinds of information.
SharePoint sites store event calendars, contacts, Web links, discussions,
issues lists, announcements, and much more. By using Windows SharePoint
Services, you can create smart places that help your users share information
and get work done, not just a place to save files.

Users get the authority, flexibility, and customization they need.
You can grant users the ability to create sites, allow them to control site
membership, monitor site usage directly, and moderate content submissions.
Users can even create site templates and share them with one another,
reusing customized, proven site solutions.

IT gets the management tools it needs.
Despite the authority delegated to users, Windows SharePoint Services also
enables you to track which sites are created, who owns them, how long a site
has gone unused, and so on. You can enforce quotas for sites, users, and
storage; block users from adding specific file types to sites; and
automatically delete sites that are unused for long periods of time.

Windows SharePoint Services scales to enterprise deployments.
You can deploy Windows SharePoint Services in server farms that support tens
of thousands of sites and can handle the typical load of hundreds of
thousands of users. Windows SharePoint Services supports load balancing for
Web servers and server clustering technology for all data—including
configuration, documents, and list data.

If you want to start small, Windows SharePoint Services runs on a single
computer.
Despite the fact that it was engineered to scale to large enterprise
deployments, Windows SharePoint Services runs well on deployments for small
business, departmental, or pilot environments.

You can enhance your SharePoint sites using Web Parts.
Site owners and users can add the Web Parts you provide to their site pages,
adding new features to the sites they already use. ASP.NET developers can
write Web Parts to provide data access, Web services, and many other
applications and content to SharePoint sites.

You can manage Windows SharePoint Services the way you want.
You can manage and configure Windows SharePoint Services right out of the
box by using a Web browser or command-line utilities. You can also manage
server farms, servers, and sites by using the Microsoft .NET Framework–based
object model and Web services, making possible a great many custom and
third-party administration solution offerings.

You can use Microsoft Office System 2003 as a powerful set of collaboration
tools.
Thanks to the Web services provided by Windows SharePoint Services, programs
in the Microsoft Office System—including Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft
Office Excel, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, Microsoft Office InfoPath, and
Microsoft Office OneNote—can use information in SharePoint sites natively.
Programs in the Microsoft Office System allow users to add members to sites,
assign tasks, and communicate with members both by e-mail or in real time by
using online presence, all while working on documents stored in SharePoint
sites. With Microsoft Office Outlook, users can view calendars and contact
lists stored on SharePoint sites and can create and manage sites devoted to
editing documents and organizing meetings.

You can organize sites and site content by using Microsoft Office SharePoint
Portal Server 2003.
Windows SharePoint Services provides large numbers of individually
productive places. SharePoint Portal Server connects these places to people,
teams, knowledge, and applications to create smart organizations. It adds
site organization and navigation, content topics, targeted news,
personalized sites, content search, organization-wide alerts, enterprise
application integration, and more to a Windows SharePoint Services
deployment.