Microsoft Knowledge Network Team Blog

The Knowledge Network for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Technical Preview is now officially closed.

MSDNArchive — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:13:00 GMT

Well the time has come to bring our Knowledge Network Technical Preview to a close. We thank all of you who tried it out and provided us with great feedback and accolades. It is rewarding to work so hard on something and to see the fantastic results that we achieved. As a result the next generation of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) will reap the benefits. So if you are a KN fan rest assured that your passion for Social Networking has had an impact on future releases of MOSS. It has been a pleasure and honor to work with and for you on this Technical Preview and we look forward to your continued support in the next release of the Microsoft Office System. To check on the progress of the future of MOSS, visit our SharePoint webpage http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/default.mspx. Thanks again for all of your support.

What's New in RC0?

MSDNArchive — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:18:00 GMT

The question came up, "what's new with this release of KN?" And so here's the answer, in addition to being more stable, which is the main goal of most subsequent releases, it adds the list below. As a Release Candidate, hence the designation "RC0" this is our first build that we feel is stable enough to be the final code. Pending your feedback and assuming that this code will be stable we will rerelease this code as the Release To Web (RTW) version. If we get significant feedback that there are issues with this build we will fix those and then release it again as RC1. But we feel pretty confident that this is the one. So enjoy!

This release features the following enhancements:

· Back-off functionality to improve your experience when you are performing activities on your machine

· Various performance enhancements on both the client and server

· Improved keyword quality and generation

· An inner-circle web part that highlights people closest to you and are most likely to assist with your query

The Download Page is now open and the KN RC0 is ready for you.

MSDNArchive — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 02:14:00 GMT

Hello KN fans, this is a bit of a mea culpa, in our enthusiasm for having an RC0 build we rushed to put it up on our download site and unfortunately it caused some difficulty for people downloading this awesome technology. Well here’s the good news, not only is it fixed, but you can now tell all of your friends to go and get it. It’s free, and you can now get access to the download page WITHOUT, yes that right WITHOUT needing to request a password. We created a page that explains the system requirements and the fact that KN is NOT supported by Microsoft. Once you click yes to “I Accept” on that page you will be directed to the download site where you can download both the client and server software. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are in the same package. Make sure that you install the version that is right for your environment. So please accept my sincerest apology for any confusion or inconvenience that this delay has caused and enjoy using KN. Check it out at https://connect.microsoft.com/knbeta

Knowledge Network first release candidate (RC0) is now available for download!!!

MSDNArchive — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 05:57:00 GMT

It's me again, the Marketing guy from the Knowledge Network for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 team. We have released our first candidate (RC0) for our final build of KN. To access the new build login to the Microsoft Connect site (https://connect.microsoft.com/knbeta) and follow the Downloads link on the left hand side to access the software package and documentation. This release features the following enhancements:

Back-off functionality to improve the user experience when they are performing activities on their machines.
Various performance enhancements on both the client and server.
Improved keyword quality and generation.
An inner circle web parts that highlights people closest to you and who are most likely to assist with your query.

We hope you are as excited and enthusiastic about KN as we are. Enjoy!

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!

MSDNArchive — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 02:43:00 GMT

To paraphrase the great writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!” Okay, so I am the guy who is responsible for bringing Knowledge Network (KN) to market. KN will be released as a technical preview, which is a way for us (Microsoft) to provide a long-lead time to our customers to look at future technologies that Microsoft is working on. The code is just at the stage where we are ready to make it available to the public as a "release candidate" or RC. The function of the RC is that it serves as the almost ready for primetime release and many times actually becomes the RTM (released to manufacturing or retail version) or in our case the RTW (released to web) version. Those of you not familiar with KN it has been in our information worker incubator group for more than three years, it is home-grown technology designed to allow a company to expose and leverage their combined intellectual assets and social capital. Essentially who knows what and who knows whom (both internal and external to an organization). Our original plan was to release KN as an add-on to Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 and provide it for no additional cost to customers who had any valid client license for SharePoint. The longer term goal is to incorporate the technology into a future release of SharePoint. So what has changed? Only this, the support model, so instead of releasing KN as a v1 supported product we made the difficult decision that at this time it makes better sense to release it as an unsupported Technical Preview. Why? Because KN in its current form is English only, it uses a separate client install and has a separate indexer. By making it an unsupported Technical Preview we give freedom to the SharePoint team to rewrite how these features are architected for future releases without the concern of breaking something that we know we need to change and without the constraint of supporting the add-on version for 10 years. Having said that we are still very enthusiastic about KN and where the technology can go and grow in the future. We openly encourage customers who are willing to evaluate emerging technologies to go ahead and deploy it and try it out and give us their feedback, feedback that will be used to shape the future of Knowledge Network. So expect to hear an announcement in the next week or two about how to get your hands on the technology and to check it out in your own environment.

Hoody and Footballs by Matthew McDermott, IW Practice Director and SharePoint MVP

MSDNArchive — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 07:28:00 GMT

So…we’re not a big company, but we’re bigger now than we were before “the crash.” We have offices in 5 cities and we’re actually two companies under one parent. But we’re not BIG, like Microsoft big, I mean, on a good day, I can still hit Hoody in the head with a carefully thrown foam football.

Let me back up for a second. Catapult Systems is a Microsoft Gold Partner headquartered in Austin, TX. We have a sister company, Inquisite, that produces the enterprise human insight software of the same name. Bryan Hood, “Hoody” to his friends, works for Inquisite. I am an IW Practice Director and SharePoint MVP for Catapult Systems, that means that I spend all of my time eating, drinking, evangelizing and delivering Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). A large part of my role is working with clients to understand the business problems they face and how to use technology to support the business solution. The problem we encounter in most organizations is “finding information.” In most organizations this means documents. The real challenge our clients face however, is that so little of their truly valuable information is stored in documents. For example, consider the bigger long term financial loss to a company, a file share of old proposals or the departure of a key sales person (and all of his/her contacts) or the “go-to" guy the “MVP” who leaves because he is overwhelmed in his job?

So what does Hoody have to do with this? Hoody is that sales guy, he sets the bar, he’s “the man!” Hoody’s contacts make him an MVP. In fact every one of our sales folks is an MVP in their own way because of their contacts and the relationships they have established with their accounts. Hoody and I are so busy that we don’t get to talk much, much less throw a football around but since we use KN we can share the intellectual capital that we both hold sacred.

There are three key scenarios where KN drives our business:

Expertise location – I work with a very talented team that is distributed across all of our offices. Most everyone at Catapult knows that I am the “SharePoint Guy.” What most don’t know is who the SharePoint team is, who they can call in Dallas for SharePoint help. The issue is not finding THE expert, but finding the “very knowledgeable,” those individuals who have the knowledge and ability (and bandwidth) to solve a problem or answer a question. Most questions don’t require the expert. Sometimes you are looking for the “composite talent”…the person who is good at “this AND that,” KN can provide that insight.

Finding the Rights – Finding Mr. or Ms. Right is about more that finding the right person. Often it is about understanding how that person interacts with the organization and their social distance from me (or the target of my search). The power of people search is not in finding a list of names, but being able to evaluate the list based on factors like social distance, colleagues in common, title, department, etc. The right person is often a collection of experiences and connections that is illusive and hard to quantify, but I know it when I see it.

External Contact Location – I need to know “who in my company knows someone in another company.” I need the personal connection that will make the difference, whether I am looking for help or looking to close a deal. Recently I began working on a migration solution for MOSS and needed to contact a technical resource inside Metalogix. Using KN I was able to find a Catapult employee who had the contact I was looking for in Metalogix. (It turns out the guy sits two cubes away from me!)

I communicate daily with extremely talented individuals both inside and outside our firewall. The quantity and quality of those communications are captured in my e-mail correspondence. KN unlocks this island of information stored in Outlook and makes it available to my team and my coworkers, with the security required by the sales folks like Hoody. I need the information that my colleagues have locked in their heads and address books. I thirst for more information, quality information, about the people in my company. I may have access to a lot of information but I am a true sufferer of “Knowledge Underload.” But with KN making the connection to friends and colleagues is as easy as making that pass to Hoody with the football.

Updating the KN Release Plan

MSDNArchive — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 17:54:00 GMT

We’ve updated the KN release plan and wanted to post some details. We’re planning on releasing KN in the first half of calendar year 2007 as a Technical Preview rather than as a supported product feature of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. As a Technical Preview, KN will still be available to customers as a web download at no additional cost and will include documentation and community support. It won’t, however, be supported or covered by standard product support services or warranties.

This update comes as a response to customer feedback. Across the board, people are excited about KN, but they’ve also stressed that they’d like to see KN integrated into the core Office Client and Server products rather than released as an add-on. After carefully considering the trade-offs, we think that’s the right way to go. The release next year will be a preview of capabilities we’ll be working to incorporate into Office in the future.

Technical Previews are best used to pilot new technologies and solicit feedback, and that’s exactly what we want to do. We hope that that customers who use the release in this way will not only gain valuable insight into how the technology can be implemented more broadly, but will also provide us with input that will be invaluable in integrating these features into future releases of the Office System. Stay tuned for more.

SW and HW Requirements for KN Server and Client

MSDNArchive — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 16:19:00 GMT

We’ve been receiving questions about system requirements for KN. Important requirements include:

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or 2007 mailbox is required for users running analysis. KN client analysis will not work against any other email systems other than Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or 2007.
Knowledge Network analysis will run successfully only on English email content.

See below for the more complete software and hardware requirements for KN on the client and server ends:

Software Requirements

Client:

Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
.Net Framework 2.0
Microsoft Office 2003 or Office 2007
Outlook email client from Office 2003 of Office 2007
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or 7
Microsoft Exchange 2003 or 2007 mailbox required for users running analysis
Knowledge Network analysis will run successfully only on English email content

Either Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger, or Microsoft Office Communicator are required to import Instant Messaging contacts

Server:

32 bit Windows 2003 Enterprise Server SP1 with Office Server 12 or 64 bit (X64) Windows 2003 Enterprise Server SP1 with 64 bit Office Server 12
IIS 6.0 installed on the target server
.Net 2.0 and ASP.Net 2.0
Microsoft Office Server 2007 must be installed according to the appropriate server type (i.e. front-end or an application server)
Each of the computers must be using the NTFS file system
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or 2005

Minimum Hardware Requirements

KN Client:

1 GHZ Processor (minimum)
512 MB of RAM
1 GB free space (2GB recommended)

Server:

Disk Space: 18 GB Data Space (30 GB Data space preferred)
Single box installation

CPU (X86 or X64): 2.5 GHZ
Memory: 4 GB recommended

Farm Deployment

Web server (CPU (X86 or X64): 2.5 GHZ, 2 GB RAM
App server (CPU (X86 or X64): 2.5 GHZ, 4 GB RAM
SQL (CPU (X86 or X64): Dual proc 2.5 GHZ; 4 GB RAM

KN TR on the new Microsoft Connect site

MSDNArchive — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 13:42:00 GMT

We've been getting a number of inquiries about the best way to contact us to get Knowledge Network, so we have updated that information here. We have now opened availability of the Knowledge Network Technical Refresh (KN TR) for selected organizations on our new Microsoft Connect site. Connect only allows email addresses that have an associated Passport account or a Windows Live ID to register. The KN TR bits are available for self-support only which means the KN team is not available to support you in your evaluation.

If you are interested in the KN team considering your organization for gaining access to the KN TR, please email us at knfeedbk at Microsoft.com and we’ll get back to you with a set of questions. Once we evaluate your responses we’ll let you know next steps. Recall also that KN requires that you run Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, so please only request KN TR access if you are also running SharePoint Server 2007.

Customer Experiences

MSDNArchive — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 15:48:00 GMT

We've been talking to many customers lately about their experiences with KN. You can hear a few present their highlights at the upcoming KMWorld and ECMWest conferences. We also have heard from top strategists who work with large organizations around the world. Here is what one of our colleagues in the field stated today about how KN can help manufacturing customers:

"Automotive companies have invested heavily in more responsive lean manufacturing processes, just-in-time inventory systems, synchronized design and development processes. Today, a significant percentage of the automobile is developed and manufactured by OEM supplier networks. Consequently, the cost and quality of a vehicle are a function of the productivity of a network of firms working in collaboration. Thus, identifying and accessing expertise within the organization and uncovering connections across the supply chain are critical elements of competitive advantage. KN can provide these just-in-time expertise location capabilities to allow customers to find, use and internally share their knowledge-based networks to achieve sustainable competitive advantage."