Saturday afternoon’s “Ask the Experts” session at SharePoint Saturday New York was an informal affair, as is generally the nature of such open dialogues between an audience and a group of SharePoint experts.  Representing the experts at the front of the room were Bob Fox, Michael Lotter, Geoff Varosky, and Tony Lanni.  Also in the room were Mark Miller and Dux Raymond Sy, the latter of whom participated in an exchange on migrating forms to SharePoint.

Some of the questions asked during the session, and the answers provided by the distinguished panel of experts, included:

Q:  What’s the sync process between content published to an Internet versus an intranet zone? 

A. If you extend your intranet to the extranet, they basically mirror images, so it’s a simultaneous publishing process.

Q:  What would be your advice regarding data migration from Lotus Domino to SharePoint 2007?

A:  Recommended third-party providers of SharePoint data migration products included Quest, AvePoint, and Metalogix.

Q:  A follow-up to the above:  In dealing with the forms in such a migration, would you recommend InfoPath or ASP.NET?

A:  Given that each option has its pros and cons, the strong recommendation by all of the experts was that if at all possible, you should wait for 2010 rather than migrating to 2007.

Q:  How does 2010 support co-authoring of documents, specifically regarding its handling of versions?

A:  The Office client, as opposed to the Web App, is required, and it tracks the changes made by both users and ultimately merges them via SharePoint Workspace.  Only one author can be working on a given area of the document at a time.

Q:  What are the limitations on the cross-browser support offered by SharePoint 2010?

A:  Though specific limitations weren’t listed, the different tiers of supported browsers were named.  First-tier browsers are IE 7 and 8 (32-bit), Firefox 3.2 (32-bit), and Opera.  Second-tier browsers are Safari and the 64-bit versions of IE and Firefox.  All other browsers fall under the third-tier category.

Q:  Using the Microsoft Web Apps on a Mac, are there any limitations?

A:  As long as you have the Apps, no.

Q:  Will it be possible to upgrade content from a beta version of SharePoint 2010 to the release version?

A:  Only if you’re a) in the Microsoft Technical Adoption Program (TAP), or b) you’re on the Release Candidate (RC) version … which is currently limited to just TAP members.

Q:  What are your recommendations regarding using backup and restore?

A:  The only time I use Central Admin backup and restore is right before I push something to production.

Tune in tomorrow for my recap of Mark Miller’s session on “Enhancing the SharePoint Interface with jQuery Solutions”!

Read the entire SharePoint Saturday New York series:

• Greetings from SharePoint Saturday New York!
• Paul J. Swider on “The Humanizing of SharePoint” in 2010
• Peter Serzo’s “At the Movies with PerformancePoint Services”
• Michael Lotter’s “SharePoint 2010 Workflow Overview with Visio and SharePoint Designer”
• “Ask the SharePoint Experts” Session with Michael Lotter, Bob Fox, Geoff Varosky and Tony Lanni
• Mark Miller on “Enhancing the SharePoint Interface with jQuery Solutions”