SharePoint 2010 Licensing – SharePoint Foundation

Since my most popular blog post of all time happened to be the one on licensing for SharePoint 2007, I thought it may be valid to put together some information for people trying to understand how to position SharePoint 2010 in their enterprise (read: figure out which edition to purchase).

This is going to be several articles, focusing on Foundation, Standard, Enterprise, Internet Sites and Online.

Windows SharePoint Services v.3 > SharePoint Foundation 2010

From Introducing SharePoint Foundation 2010: “Windows SharePoint Services is now Microsoft SharePoint Foundation—the essential starting point for organizations that want the business benefits of Web-based collaboration combined with the value and security of an enterprise solution.”

As before, SP Foundation is going to be the free version of SharePoint that is arguably one of the most hated/loved in the Microsoft ecosystem. Features are generally the same as WSS, and is centered on collaboration with peers (through blogs, wikis, team workspaces and basic document management).

Personally, I think WSS was overlooked by many IT pros and business decision makers as a very powerful tool at the compelling price of free, and Foundation continues to be an important element in that space.

Just like WSS, Foundation is will still form the underlying architecture for the full server suite.

Important across all the SharePoint editions, the 2010 release is going to be supporting accessibility standards, ensuring that any solutions delivered with SharePoint 2010 comes with out of the box support for WCAG 2.0.

Tomorrow: Part 2, Standard Features.

    This entry was posted by on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at 5:09 pm. It is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    3 Responses to “SharePoint 2010 Licensing – SharePoint Foundation”

    1. Does SharePoint Foundation 2010 have Access Services and if so how do I start the service running? If not, how do I add the service?

    2. No – Access Services, like Forms Server and Excel Services, is exclusively part of the Enterprise CAL.

      To add the service, you would have to install the full SharePoint Server 2010, and activate the enterprise features.

    3. If you have any questions about what features sit in what product, Microsoft has a very handy reference guide:
      http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Editions-Comparison.aspx.

    Leave a Reply