Almost five years ago, when I completed my sixth book, Scot Hillier’’s COM+ Programming with Visual Basic (SAMS, 2000), I thought I was done with technical writing. Since then, I have seen some new technologies emerge, but none was compelling enough to coax me back to the keyboard. That all changed when I got my hands on the Microsoft Office System beta. Although the Office System certainly has its limitations, several elements really got my attention. The developer in me had a hard time resisting the .NET architecture upon which SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) is based. All true developers love to tinker with products, and the extensive API associated with SPS made development fun again. From a business perspective, I saw the possibility to create some solutions that would solve real issues that were currently plaguing businesses-file system organization and process au- mation came quickly to mind. Both of these areas are strong suits for the Office System. Ultimately, it was the combination of interesting development projects and the promise of improving some business processes that drove me to suggest the book to the Apress staff. In fact, this is really the perspective I tried to bring to the book. I wanted to combine my bu- ness needs and programming skills to create a vision of how to use the Office System. You can judge how well that goal was met.
