| The new Office XP includes SharePoint Team Services, which allows end users to create and add content to team, departmental, or project-based Web sites. If your organization is currently using SharePoint Team Services, it may be beneficial to allow the index of a SharePoint Portal Server workspace to include documents that are stored in the existing SharePoint Team Services Web Site document libraries. After this indexing capability is enabled, the SharePoint Team Services content is then available to be searched directly from within the SharePoint Portal Server workspace. NOTE You must have SharePoint Portal Server 2001 Service Pack 1 installed for access to the protocol handler that enables searches for SharePoint Team Services document libraries.
If your organization has a need for teams to work together within a business unit or across multiple business units, SharePoint Team Services is a great product that enables this to happen through a simple Web-based solution. The product can be used to perform basic tasks such as teams efficiently managing their tasks from a Web browser. In addition, SharePoint Team Services can be used to provide a rich collaborative Web solution, which can be closely coupled with features and capabilities of Office XP. Table 1.1 illustrates the similarities and differences between SharePoint Portal Server and SharePoint Team Services: Table 1.1. Core Features of SharePoint Portal Server Versus SharePoint Team Services | Feature | SharePoint Portal Server | SharePoint Team Services | | Enterprise search | X | | | Rich document management functionality | X | | | Customized with Digital Dashboards and Web Parts | X | | | Based on Web Storage System for custom collaboration solutions | X | | | Extensible with Visual Studio and common programming interfaces such as OLEDB, ADO, and CDO | X | | | Departmental/enterprise information portals | X | X | | Team collaborative Web sites | X | X | | Easy document sharing and team organization | X | X | | Available for intranets and for extranets via ISPs | X | X | | Integrated Office XP user experience | X | X | | Customized using Microsoft FrontPage | | X | | Team templates for easy Web site creation | | X | | Can be used to create Internet sites as well as intranet | | X | NOTE To learn more about the detailed list of features and capabilities of SharePoint Team Services, visit the Microsoft site located at http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/.
By now you are aware that Office XP can be used along with SharePoint Team Services to set up and manage small team- and project-based Web sites. When you factor in the use of SharePoint Portal Server, you are then exploiting the product's capabilities to provide a variety of content types throughout the enterprise. Later in this book we will discuss how SharePoint Portal Server can be used as the corporate portal within the enterprise.  To learn more about using SharePoint as a corporate portal, see "Example Scenario 3 - Enterprise Wide Solution," p. 577. This single portal concept will also be the central document management library with categories set up according to the way your end users work on a daily basis. Organizations of all sizes can benefit when both SharePoint Team Services and SharePoint Portal Server are used to provide the level of flexibility that your company requires. Consider the possibilities of allowing small workgroups the ability to collaborate with each other with little or no IT resource support requirements. You then add the robust enterprise search and document management features of SharePoint Portal Server, and the result is an aggregated enterprise corporate knowledge forum. The enterprise portal could consist of a single workspace with access to SharePoint Team Services Web sites, intranet sites, file servers, Notes databases, public folders, and external Internet sites. SharePoint Portal Server exists in several language versions such as English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Japanese. SharePoint Portal Server includes both the server and client components , but does not include a specific client graphical users interface. However, functionality is enabled through tight integration with Office, Windows, and your Web browser. | 
