Exploring the SharePoint product line

First things first.…There is no product with the name SharePoint.…You can't actually go and buy something called SharePoint.…That's just a useful phrase that describes several different products and technologies.…But obviously something somewhere has to be installed, so what actually gets installed?…Well, there are several choices.…First off is something called SharePoint Foundation 2010.…This is free software that is installed on your Windows Server machines and…SharePoint Foundation is the engine, the core, the heartbeat of all the…SharePoint products.…

While SharePoint foundation does provide a great deal of functionality, most…larger organizations use another technology called SharePoint Server 2010.…SharePoint Server 2010 wraps around SharePoint Foundation.…If it's in the foundation product, it's in SharePoint Server.…SharePoint Server is built on top of and includes everything is…SharePoint Foundation.…Now SharePoint Server 2010 comes in two Editions.…There's a Standard Edition, and there's an Enterprise Edition.…