Last week we had an email from a customer who was confused about his options for SharePoint 2010. He was planning to move his 5 WSS site across to SharePoint 2010 Foundation – but had found this document from Microsoft:

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Licensing-Details.aspx

which seems to suggest that sites and Workspaces were not available in Foundation, only in SharePoint 2010 standard edition or above.  Well we knew this wasn’t right;  but that wasn’t what the info from Microsoft seemed to be saying.

This gave us a reminder of just how confusing our friends at Microsoft can make things.  So we thought we would gather together some handy resources for all of you who may be thinking of moving over to SharePoint 2010. As always we have focussed mainly on users and administrators.  I hope you find it useful.

First a proper list of features for the different SharePoint 2010 versions:

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Editions-Comparison.aspx

If you want to download the free SharePoint 2010 Foundation version here’s the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=49c79a8a-4612-4e7d-a0b4-3bb429b46595&displaylang=en

Or for the 180 day free trials of the paid versions of SharePoint 2010 try this one:

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/products/pages/try-it.aspx?bannerId=2#fbid=xIIGCkpQnQK

For a Virtual Hard Drive, pre-configured with everything you need to get a trial up and running quickly try this:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=751FA0D1-356C-4002-9C60-D539896C66CE&displaylang=en

Then take a look at the walk through guide:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=8c619bef-008b-4af2-9687-8a05848fea97

Take a look at Microsoft’s SP 2010 end user training materials here:

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/Pages/End-User-Training-Guide.aspx

Online training sessions on installing, upgrading, branding and social media coming up in June 2010, from SharePoint 911 – $99 per session.

http://www.sharepoint911.com/training/Pages/2010Training.aspx

Basic free end user training videos from point8020.  These aren’t really highlighting differences between 2010 and earlier SP versions, but they are all done in 2010 and there are lots of them, so could be good for the new user:

http://www.point8020.com/SharePointEndUserTraining.aspx

On the books front, Amazon already has an impressive list. You can get SharePoint 2010 for Dummies on paper or Kindle (I do like my “Dummies” books !)

http://www.amazon.com/SharePoint-2010-Dummies-Vanessa-Williams/dp/0470476435/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274957537&sr=1-2

or “Professional SharePoint 2010 Administration” in the generally reliable Wrox series:

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-SharePoint-2010-Administration-Klindt/dp/0470533331/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274957537&sr=1-3

And in the same series “Professional Workflow 4 in SharePoint 2010”:

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Workflow-SharePoint-2010-Solutions/dp/0470617888/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274959947&sr=1-13

“Building the SharePoint 2010 user Experience” from Apress also looks interesting for anyone who is a SharePoint champion within their organization:

http://www.amazon.com/Building-SharePoint-2010-User-Experience/dp/1430227753/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274957537&sr=1-11

There are lots more books out there, but mostly aimed at developers or focussed on specific features like BCS.

If you’re a developer you might want to take a look at these:

And then finally the most valuable SharePoint 2010 resource of all is clearly our own fabulous range of Pentalogic webparts for SharePoint, which are all 2010 ready!

Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself!

Tags: SharePoint 2010