Office Pro 2010 Key SharePoint gets an open-source

As part of its ongoing campaign to emphasize SharePoint Server;s social-computing capabilities,Genuine Office 2007, Microsoft rolled out on June nine a check edition of the Podcast Kit for SharePoint (PKS), which it is making available beneath an open-source license.
PKS is constructed around the Microsoft Silverlight platform and is also compatible with the Zune, Windows Mobile units, PCs and “other gadgets that play podcasts,Microsoft Office Standard 2010,” according to the company. Microsoft;s own sales organization has been implementing PKS internally during the past year.
PKS can record and distribute video and audio information. It also can access audio or video podcasts on any device that can play them; integrate with instant-messaging programs; discover “the most relevant content making use of a rating system, tag clouds and search functions”; and allow subscribers to receive content automatically via RSS feeds. Silverlight is the vehicle for playing the podcasts employing PKS.
The source code for PKS is free for SharePoint customers under the Microsoft Public License. (It also requires Windows Server and SQL Server.) The fine print, regarding support:
PKS “is not supported by Microsoft,Office Pro 2010 Key, and we recommend that you ask your integration partner for such a support. Since the PKS;s code is distributed any partner who understands development for SharePoint 2007 will be able to deliver this support for you.”
According to the roadmap about the Microsoft CodePlex site, the first full-fledged beta of PKS is due out in September 2008. That beta build will be stable enough for customers to deploy in production, according to company officials.
Via the PKS page on CodePlex,Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise, Microsoft is seeking partners to build new capabilities for future versions of PKS. Among the ones Microsoft is seeking: Facebook like features: add to co-workers,Office Professional Plus 2010, the wallNetflix-like homepage (rate and comment your latest downloaded podcasts)Tell a story: assemble podcasts together in a wiki type environment“Content being watched right now” bannerOffline rating and commenting: rate and comment just by replying to a weekly digest emailFiltering v2: extended filtering solution, similar to what newegg.com is doingUse existing meta tags as suggestions during upload process
Do businesses honestly care about podcasting and other social-networking tools? Microsoft believes so and included this supporting factoid in its PKS press release:
“According to an April 2008 Forrester Research Inc. report, ‘Global Enterprise Market Forecast: 2007 to 2013,; 56 percent of North American and European enterprises consider Web 2.0 to be a priority in 2008, and the marketplace will increase from $764 million in 2008 to $4.6 billion by 2013.”