New SharePoint 2010 information on MSDN

While the SharePoint Conference 2009 continues to day 2, Microsoft adds more SharePoint Content to MSDN. Did you notice that MSDN looks different this week?

Windows SharePoint Services are now, collectively, called SharePoint Foundation. This makes sense, since a number of products (Dynamics, Project Server, Commerce Server, etc.) use these services. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is now simply called the SharePoint Server. Hopefully, this will be easier to explain that the difference between WSS and MOSS.

While you're at it, try to call InfoPath > Design mode the InfoPath Designer (as opposed to the InfoPath Editor). Oh, and don't call anything Groove, either.

Here is an early list of interesting finds:

• It's all in the 14 hive! Yay! Now all my customizations need to be redeployed!
• The class libraries have been published. Here is Microsoft.SharePoint.
• Alerts may now be instantiated as SMS messages.
• Business Connectivity Services (formerly the BDC) are read/write and may access Binary Large Objects (BLOBs) such as files, images, etc.
• Client Object Model for client access to SharePoint objects. Developers are now using Web Services to perform these out-of-context tasks (updating lists, creating sites, etc.). The Client Object Model - I do not want to ever refer to this as COM - can bring the current Context directly into the browser. These libraries will be useful for caching SharePoint objects locally.
• Synchronization Services are extended to SharePoint Foundation. Synchronization Services were originally released for ADO.NET 1.0 to resolve conflicts between SQL Server Compact 3.5 (for Mobile devices) and SQL Server. A good description of the architecture is here, albeit for an older version. The Sync Framework, as it is now called, resolves offline transaction conflicts between database servers and clients.
• Web Part Mobile Adapters, which handle web part rendering on mobile devices.
• New Querying methods:
  
  • LINQ to SharePoint
  • "Join" element for CAML queries
  • Direct programmatic access to Entity Objects, which can be automatically created from SharePoint List Schema using the \14\bin\SPMetal.exe tool.
• Sandboxed Solutions are solutions packages uploaded and activated to site collections by site collection administrators. The solutions have access to fewer SharePoint libraries, and can be monitored for CPU utilization, Memory usage, etc.
• External Applications can be accessed directly by Silverlight Web Parts (without the need for Business Connectivity Services), including the delegation of credentials and the use of application security accounts (principals).
• Content and application pages now use the same Master Page. Content placeholders are the same in all pages.
• PowerShell commandlets for SharePoint operations, and the ability to extend PowerShell.
• Workflow can read from and write to external sources. Workflow can be developed to run in differing contexts and with differing privilege. Workflow are not eternally married to a particular list but may be reusable! Workflow are associated with a particular list as a configuration; and, they may be associated with more than one list.

In the meantime, check out this page for developer information. I'll get to the information on SharePoint Server 2010 soon.

Good luck!