Using SharePoint for Collaboration and Document Management

SharePoint 2010 is many things to many people, so it is difficult to narrow the focus onto specific features and functionality. Two areas that are typically focused on, and help business decision makers better understand how SharePoint 2010 can be used, are in the areas of collaboration and document management functionality. SharePoint 2010 integrates extensively with the Office 2010 product line, so it becomes an extension of the business productivity tools that knowledge workers already know like the backs of their hands and therefore enhances collaboration between employees. SharePoint 2010 provides for road-tested and robust enterprise content management, document management, and records management for organizations of all different shapes and sizes. Organizations can store their documents within SharePoint document libraries and take advantage of version control, check-in/check-out, and new features such as the Managed Metadata Service, which can help control the type of metadata that documents in SharePoint have. SharePoint lists store data rather than files and can be leveraged in many ways, because each is a self-contained database that can be used in many of the same ways that a spreadsheet can.