Connect.Collaborate.SharePoint

Web Content Management with Windows SharePoint Services

Most people think that you have to use the WCM features of MOSS to deliver a public facing web site. It is true that MOSS provides a very rich platform on which to deliver a WCM solution, if all you want is a simple but dynamic publishing site then you can't beat the value of WSS as a CMS. I have had several people asking me for any resources I had for how to deliver a public facing WSS site so I thought I would recycle the answers into a post.

SharePoint Designer is Microsoft's tool to customize the OOTB SharePoint UI. Watch these demos
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102199841033.aspx?pid=CH102201271033

Update: SPD is now FREE!

Better branding of the WSS site can be achieved with 3rd party solutions/frameworks:

Here are some examples of sites running on WSS...

http://www.wellington-college.school.nz

(created by a New Zealand company http://www.provoke.co.nz)

http://www.nordam.com/default.aspx http://fa.iwpco.ir/default.aspx

I don't track WSS public sites in the MOSS list any more but feel free to list any you know of in the comments of this post and I'll approve them.

This post will probably lead onto "Why don't we just use WSS for our corporate web site" and "What are the benefits of MOSS for WCM if I can do it with WSS"

Posted by corp\ianmorr on Friday, 6 Mar 2009 12:29 | 6 Comments
SharePoint

Links to this post

Comments


Friday, 6 Mar 2009 04:20 by Jeff Dalton
Is it legal to use WSS for public facing sites? Check the SharePoint licensing. I think you need the Internet Connector (or whatever it is called today which gives you MOSS).

Friday, 6 Mar 2009 09:43 by Ian Morrish
It is legal. If you are using full SQL server then SQL Server must be per-proc licensed but the built in DBthat comes with single server WSS is free. If you want to authenticate Internet users then you only need the Windows Internet licence which is cheap compared to MOSS for Internet license.

Saturday, 7 Mar 2009 06:46 by Aaron
Hi Ian -- great post! Take a look at http://www.pittsburghsharepoint.com too. It was developed completely in WSS 3.0. Thanks

Monday, 9 Mar 2009 10:23 by Ian Morrish
This post also has some information regarding WSS as a WCM platform. http://blogs.msdn.com/nijain/archive/2008/06/30/wss-as-platform-for-internet-web.aspx

Thursday, 19 Mar 2009 12:37 by Robin
Hi Ian, did you check out our site as well? http://www.zevenseas.com it's completely built on WSS3.0 ;) And it will have a nice update within the next couple of weeks as well. Let me know your thoughts! Cheers, Robin

Thursday, 16 Apr 2009 09:45 by Ian Morrish
2 more WSS sites based on SharePoint Simple CMS Nestle Slovenia: http://www.nestle.si Acision: http://www.acision.com
Name

Url

Email

Comments

CAPTCHA Image Validation