I've now had a look through the on-line chapters of the two more general Wrox books that have come out so. In both I liked the text much more than that of the "Bible" but I didn't like the sloppy way they handled the naming of the products.

One of the things that people who know me from the newsgroups will know is that I am a pain for wanting people to get the names right.

If we are to answer a question properly in a newsgroup we need to know which product people are using yet often they don't say and even when they are specifically asked they say things like "I'm using SharePoint 2007" which is pretty useless information considering that there are two SharePoint products that came out in 2007 (WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007).

There are also people who claim to be using SPS 2007 (no such thing) or STS 2.0 (ditto) or WSS (good enough a description when there was only one SharePoint version called WSS but now no use) etc.

I take this so seriously that my chapter of the MVP book (also Wrox in fact) spends a good bit of time making quite sure people know both the correct names and the correct abbrieviations.

Not so unfortunately both of these sets of authors (although - as above - apart from the names, the texts are mostly fine).

Amanda and Shane in "Beginning SharePoint 2007: Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007" -

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0470124490/heme0f

are the worst (of these two sets of writers) offenders in this aspect of name usage.

They are absolutely fine when they spell out the names Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in full and they are completely correct in their descriptions of what sort of thing WSS 3.0 alone is sufficient for. Most people wondering whether to use WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007 will find this very useful. However these people will also find it difficult to know where the discussion of what's in WSS 3.0 stops and what's in MOSS 2007 starts because most of the time Amanda and Shane are talking about "SharePoint".

Sometimes by this they mean both products but mostly they seem to mean MOSS 2007. Yet if that's the case why do they later introduce the term "SharePoint 2007" which yes, you've guessed it, seems to mean MOSS 2007. as well.

So for now the jury is out on this one. I suspect that once we've got past the first chapter they will be talking only about MOSS 2007 and then it won't really matter what they call it for short (except for poor newsgroup answerers in future) and we'll have the benefit of their wide practical knowledge which despite the name confusion in chapter one does shine out there.

The other chapter one - this time from Göran Husman's Beginning SharePoint 2007 Administration: Windows SharePoint Services 3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 -

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0470125292/heme0f

was more of a standard approach (with, for instance, a very long table comparing what you get when working with different Office versions) and as such means that I probably wouldn't buy the book for myself. (But then which self-respecting SharePoint MVP would buy a book titled "Beginning ..." !)

The names were a bit off here too for a pedantic person like myself with things like "they released version 3.0 which is known as Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server" when adding 3.0 and 2007 respectively to the product names was absolutely necessary. There was also for my taste far too much of "SharePoint 2007" (again!)

Aside: what to use? "The v3 SharePoint products" if you want both; otherwise having established the abbrieviations use WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 all the time (and never as happens here more than once just WSS when you mean WSS 3.0).

However like the Amanda and Shane book, this one too if you could forget about the name usage and a few minor inexactitudes (I don't feel quite so worried about my coming errors any more having read these first three Chapter Ones), this chapter wouldn't put me off recommending this book for people new to Administrating SharePoint systems - just as I would probably still advise people wanting to do useful things with MOSS 2007 to buy the ... Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007 book. I wouldn't be surprised if the Beginning in that title was a trifle wrong though, as I suspect they'll manage to go much further than you might think in their "building". Given that, even I might well consider buying this one (despite "Beginning ..."!) - but I'd want a look through the remaining chapters to see if the naming problem vanishes when it's all about MOSS 2007.