Whole Lotta SharePoint News

I've had a funny scene play out repeatedly over the last few months. Someone says "hey Jim, I've got a question about the SharePoint book." "Yeah, which one, I'm working on 5 SharePoint books, could you be more specific?" yes, really, 5 SharePoint books simultaneously in the works, plus another editor with a couple of books on a key SharePoint component.

So 2 of the SharePoint books are really through all of their final hurdles (I think), working their way through the last stages of proofing and soon to be at the printer and we'll have them by the end of May. Most of the authors on those books are also super-bloggers so it's a good time to call them all out.

First, Beginning SharePoint 2007: Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007 by:

• Amanda Murphy - SharePoint MVP AND also soon to be President of INETA!
• Shane Perran - SharePoint MVP

I met Amanda almost 2 years ago. I was hanging out at a BOF at tech ed where the scheduled speaker didn't show and Amanda stood in and did a great job running the show impromptu. I talked to her afterword, she introduced me to Shane. And I bugged them for a year "will you write a book NOW, will you write a book NOW?" until at Tech Ed 06, I wore them down and they finally said yes. A year's worth of writing outlines, draft chapters, revisions, more revisions, and finally, it will be a great book next month. Amanda and Shane, thanks for sticking this through to the end and looking forward to seeing you in person again at Tech Ed.

We also have the first excerpt from Amanda and Shane's book posted at Wrox.com: Using the Approval Workflow Template in Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007.

The other big book in the SharePoint lineup that's almost done is Professional SharePoint 2007 Development. This book was assembled by a host of stars but has 2 real superstars to thank first:

• Thomas Rizzo - PM for SharePoint at Microsoft wrote the original outline and some of the content, but not as much as he wanted to. And, he probably woouldn't recognize the outline and we rewrote it. Tom is always a great guy to work with, I've known him since Exchange 2000 days, he's watched me move through my odd career and always been interested in my writing ideas.
• John Holliday - SharePoint MVP - John, I'm so lucky Andrew introduced us. John stepped in and wrote the biggest chunk of this book, probably the last 1/3 of the book on all of the Workflow topics. I am really looking forward to working with John more.

Then the rest of this great gang each pitched in a couple of chapters:

• John Alexander - Microsoft RD
• Jeff Julian - Windows Server System XML MVP
• Eli Robillard - MOSS MVP
• Brendon Schwartz - MVP - Visual Developer ASP/ASP.NET - and Atlanta .NET Regular Guy
• Matt Ranlett - MVP - SQL Server and another Atlanta .NET Regular Guy
• J. Dan Attis - another Atlanta .NET Regular Guy
• Adam Buenz - SharePoint MVP

Guys: I know it's been crazy and tons of pressure on deadlines (deadlines, you gave us deadlines? what deadlines? - OK, there were a couple of people in this mix who hit deadlines but I'm not going to single the others out<g>) but thanks for the great work and looking forward to seeing many of you at Tech Ed.

And we've also got an article posted from this on Wrox.com: Creating Content Type Metadata for SharePoint 2007 Document Management Solutions. From one of John's chapters.

OK then, a couple of books I didn't work on but worth a quick shout:

• Beginning Excel Services - by Liviu Asnash, Eran Megiddo, Craig Thomas and an excerpt on Wrox.com: Excel Services User-Defined Functions
• Professional Excel Services - Shahar Prish

I really think as people start to understand what Excel Services is and what it can do for their organizations, it's going to be the huge sleeper hit.

And, MANY more SharePoint authors to thank over the next few weeks.

Comments

[Shane Perran]

Jim, it was an absolute pleasure to work with you and I look forward to another in the future. I hope the book is being well received! :)

Little delayed on my response huh? :)