Matt Bremer's Blog : Announcements

SharePoint Designer Available as Free Download after 4/1/09

mattbremer — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:28:40 GMT

I received confirmation today that the rumors and suspected April Fools’ hoax regarding SharePoint Designer becoming available via free download are in fact true. Below is the customer ready announcement directly from Microsoft:

“One of the key aspects of the SharePoint value proposition is its ability to support customized solutions built on our platform. Our strategy is to facilitate the creation of these customizations and allow our customers to make the most of their overall investments in SharePoint. Based on the feedback from our customers, we are making SharePoint Designer 2007 available as a free download to all customers of SharePoint and Windows SharePoint Services products. This change takes effect on April 1, 2009. It is important to note that SharePoint Designer 2007 is NOT going end-of-life. The future release of SharePoint Designer will be released simultaneously with the next release of the next version of SharePoint. In addition, customers on SA will be granted rights to Expression Web.”

While this is a great value add for current and future SharePoint customers, this is significant given how powerful SharePoint Designer is. The previous licensing of SharePoint Designer forced many Enterprises to deploy SharePoint Designer to a limited user base thus the potential for harm was limited. Now that the tool is available via free download, care must be taken to mitigate the risk. Click here for information on how to secure your SharePoint implementation and enforce proper governance for SharePoint Designer users.

UPDATE: Official announcement is now available on SharePoint Designer site: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA103607611033.aspx

Possibly Presenting at Kansas City's SharePoint Saturday in February

mattbremer — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:38:43 GMT

Going to give my talk on aggregating content across site collections using search without writing code. Should be a great event. Any suggestions for fun things to do in KC with a family in February are appreciated.

http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/kc/Pages/default.aspx

Speaking at St. Louis SharePoint User Group January Meeting

mattbremer — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:02:00 GMT

I will be presenting at the St. Louis SharePoint User Group meeting January 13, 2008. The talk will cover how to aggregate content across site collections without writing custom code or purchasing a third party solution. In this session you will learn how to use the Data View Web Part connected to the SharePoint search web service to aggregate content across site collections without code and still respect your list and site security. I hope to see you there.

St. Louis SharePoint User Group Meeting for May

mattbremer — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:11:00 GMT

The St. Louis SharePoint user group is having their bi-monthly May meeting Tuesday, May 13 at 8:30 am in the Microsoft office. Visit the STLSUG site and register to attend if you are interested and have not already. The group will be presenting best practices on how to upgrade to SP1 for MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 in the first session and tips on enabling AJAX support in the second. If you are in the St. Louis area, interested in MOSS/WSS and are not already a member then what are you waiting for? Many dedicated professionals work hard to share their MOSS and WSS experience with the community and plan these meetings. It is also worth mentioning that Microsoft provides the requisite free breakfast and plenty of swag at the meetings. No self respecting technology organization would not provide free food and t-shirts! Sign up now!

Blog UI Update

mattbremer — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:27:00 GMT

Yes it's yet another customized paperclip theme so I'm sure you are less than impressed. I'm a developer not a designer and have just enough photoshop skills to make a banner so given my limited design skills I think it looks kind of cool. It also allows me to proudly wave the Microsoft flag while still reflecting my inner geekdom. I think Master Chief would like it. What do you think?

FYI, Halo Wars should be fairly awesome.