Channel Insider content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

Lost in the commotion surrounding the arrival of Microsoft’s Windows Vista and Office 2007 was the release of a product that may end up being more important than either of those two platforms, especially on the enterprise side: SharePoint Server 2007.

Microsoft considers SharePoint Server 2007 a component of Office, but it’s actually much more. You can make a very good argument that SharePoint Server is now the core platform on which almost all Microsoft-based Web, SOA (service-oriented architecture), BPM (business process management), e-commerce, content management, collaboration and, of course, portal initiatives will be built.

During my testing so far, it looks as if Microsoft has done a good job of opening up SharePoint Server so that it works well in standards-based situations while improving its integration with other Microsoft applications, including Outlook and Visual Studio.

Click here to read my full review of SharePoint Server 2007.

Check out eWEEK.com’s for Microsoft and Windows news, views and analysis.