Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is the Microsoft enterprise search solution for organizations that want to increase productivity and reduce information overload by providing their employees, partners, and customers the ability to find relevant content in a wide range of repositories and formats. With actionable search results that respect security permissions, Office SharePoint Server 2007 lets users go beyond documents and across repositories to unlock information, find people, and locate expertise in the enterprise.

Built for the enterprise

In Office SharePoint Server 2007, search results are delivered quickly and relevance is tuned for enterprise and line-of-business data.

•	Relevance is tuned for enterprise content with the best results across structured and unstructured data sources determined by a rich and broad range of factors.
•	Robust security, granular administrative controls comprehensive monitoring, analytics, and reporting help ensure compliance and protect intellectual property (IP).
•	Enterprise-grade scalability, extensibility, and manageability meet the needs of even the largest organizations.

Unlock data and expertise

Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides out-of-the-box search for common enterprise repositories and file types as well as for people and experts. With Office SharePoint Server 2007, you can:

•	Search file shares, Web sites, SharePoint sites, Exchange Public Folders, and Lotus Notes databases out of the box and easily extend search to third party sources and file types.
•	Index, search, and intelligently display information from line-of-business applications, relational databases, and other structured content using the Business Data Catalog.
•	Leverage "people search" capabilities to find people not only by department or job title but also by expertise, social distance, and common interests.

Integrated user experience

Enterprise search functionality is integrated with the collaboration, portals, content management, forms and business intelligence features of SharePoint Server 2007 and can be integrated with other 2007 Office system products to help users easily find, use, and share information and increase productivity.

•	Find, use and share information in the context of where you are working with the familiar tools you use every day.
•	Results are displayed more clearly, hits are highlighted, duplicate entries are collapsed, and synonyms are suggested.
•	Results are actionable and further enhanced through optional integration with tools such as real-time communications.

The following table outlines and compares the enterprise search features included in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise CAL. For the complete feature outline, please refer to the Office SharePoint Server edition comparison document.

KEY:	= Feature Included     = Improved in Office SharePoint Server 2007     = New in Office SharePoint Server 2007

Features	SharePoint Portal Server 2003	SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise CAL
User interface Simple, clean yet powerful user interface with industry-standard query syntax. Scopes are decoupled from content sources so users can easily broaden or narrow the scope of a content search. Search can be based on arbitrary content properties such as URL, type, and author. Actionable search results can be easily filtered and sorted, used, and shared. Alerts and RSS feeds easily provide updated results for common and frequent queries.
Search results Search results are rendered more clearly. Results are security trimmed so users only see what they can access. Results include user-friendly features such as hit highlighting, duplicate collapsing and synonym suggestion. Optional integration with real-time communications tools allow users to easily contact content authors and experts.
Enterprise content sources Searches over 200 file types in many enterprise content sources, including files shares, Web sites, SharePoint sites, Exchange Public Folders, and Lotus Notes databases out-of-the-box with the ability to extend to additional third party repositories and filetypes through the use of Protocol Handlers and iFilters.
Relevance New and improved search algorithms tuned for enterprise content along with the use of relevance and ranking factors such as click distance, hyperlink anchor text, URL depth, and metadata extraction yield the best results for enterprise content.
Administration and management Improved administration user interfaces and admin application programming interface (API) provides broad support for various search and indexing scenarios, central controls for resource-intensive operations, as well as tools for management and reporting.
Indexing controls Granular indexing controls for easy inclusion and exclusion of searched content as well as immediate result removal of any site or item. Continuous index propagation to keep information fresh. Improved crawl rules and crawl log; multiple start addresses per content source; a new browse-able, filterable index log provide necessary information to optimize search.
Security Administrator permissions no longer required by crawler. Access control list (ACL) and ACL-only crawls index content permissions for compliance, privacy, and protection of intellectual property (IP). Security-trimmed search results only allow users to see content they are allowed to access.
People search People search capabilities allow users to find people not only by department or job title but also by expertise, social distance, and common interests.
Business data search Search data residing in your line of business applications using the Business Data Catalog. Structured content sources as well as line-of-business application data and reports accessible through Web services or ADO.NET can be indexed and retrieved through the Business Data Catalog as search results or into a SharePoint list.