More than ever, businesses and organizations rely on an incredibly rich set of tools in order to operate effectively. But the independent nature of these tools—PCs, development and desktop applications, messaging platforms, internet and intranet sites, databases, and team management sites—generally prohibit simple collaboration and integration, even within extremely closeknit organizations. In essence, the richness of today’s IT toolset has situated us all on our own islands, with no bridges connecting us.

But that’s all about to change. Lighthouse Computer Services, a Microsoft Certified Partner with over ten years of experience implementing Microsoft solutions, now offers Professional Services around Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007 (SPPS). SPPS enables businesses, educational institutions— or any organization with disparate tools, systems and teams—to seamlessly integrate and collaborate via a common platform, without abandoning the tools and systems they rely on today. In addition, they can use SPPS to organize teams and people, as well as integrate and provision collaboration sites, all from one interface.

SPPS greatly simplifies the virtual workplace of today, while allowing individuals to use their own set of tools—making important information, teams and resources easily accessible to everyone within an organization.

Look to Lighthouse to help you implement Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007, and find out how we can turn your isolated islands into a collaborative, interconnected community.

For a no-cost initial consultation, please call Lighthouse Computer Services at 888-542-8030.

Fig. 1 - The simple, customizable SharePoint Portal interface allows users access to a wealth of information across the organization.

The world we live in depends heavily on communication. Companies spend billions of dollars each year to maintain, improve or upgrade the ways they communicate and the tools they use to do so. Even so, many business users make critical decisions about individual and team productivity, revenue generation and cost reduction without incorporating key pieces of information. Why? Because it’s just too difficult to
get the information using current tools.

Other members of organizations have similar problems. IT departments lack the tools they need to aggregate, organize and disperse information to the entire company. Developers lack the skills to build custom applications from the hundreds of back-end sources they are given. Finally, end users find themselves barraged with difficult-to-use specialized information access tools, but still want the familiar applications they use every day—such as desktop applications, email and text messaging tools, and web browsers.

Microsoft has taken communication to a whole new level, while keeping management, IT, developers and end users happy. Using a simple browser interface (see Figure 1), SharePoint Portal Server 2007 (SPPS) allows users to:

• Create, manage and interconnect personal and group sites—internal and external to the organization
• Perform document and content management, team management and simplified messaging utilizing the Microsoft Office 2003/2007 Suite
• Search file shares, web servers, MS Exchange folders, Lotus Notes and SharePoint services

The collaborative nature of SPPS allows seamless integration with a host of popular applications, such as the Microsoft Office 2003/2007 suite. In addition, SPPS supports integration with the following Microsoft products:

• Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 puts the control of Instant Messaging into your hands. This product allows local and remote users to share critical and time-sensitive information without requiring access to a Virtual Private Network. No matter what popular IM service is used (MSN, AOL, Yahoo), instant messages are encrypted and logged for security and effectiveness.
• Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 allows you to connect with diverse or legacy software, then graphically create and modify process logic that uses that software. BizTalk also lets
  information workers monitor running processes, interact with trading partners, and perform other business-oriented tasks.
• Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003 stores and integrates identity information for organizations with multiple directories. MIIS 2003 provides organizations with a unified view of all known identity information about users, applications, and network resources, and helps improve productivity, reduce security risk, and reduce the total cost of ownership.

Lighthouse has over ten years of experience implementing and supporting Microsoft solutions. Our Professional Services consultants have performed dozens of Microsoft implementations and integrations, and also have earned their Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE) and Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) certifications.

As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Lighthouse has been recognized by Microsoft for the highest level of competence and expertise with Microsoft technologies, and has the closest possible working relationship with Microsoft.

In addition, Lighthouse has achieved Microsoft’s Advanced Infrastructure Solutions Competency, for partners with proven competency in complex infrastructure solutions such as Active Directory, Identity Integration Server and Exchange Server. Lighthouse has also achieved Microsoft’s Networking
Infrastructure Solutions Competency, for partners with proven competency in either Windows Server 2000/2003 operating systems or Small Business Server 2000/2003.