"One of the first decisions to make is whether this Web site will be based on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or whether it will be a SharePoint Server Web site with the Publishing Features enabled. Although publishing sites are built on top of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, there are many advantages for building engaging Internet-facing Web sites with SharePoint Server. The following list contains some of the benefits to creating a brand with publishing sites versus Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 sites:

• Publishing sites enable content authors to create Web pages with a more robust rich-text editing experience.

• Master pages that are targeted for publishing sites can take advantage of specific code assemblies that use Publishing Features.

• Navigation can be more easily controlled from the Web user interface and more options are available to the designer.

• Publishing sites enable you to change out a master page by using the Web user interface.

• Publishing sites enable developers and designers to create page templates by using page layouts.

• Master pages in publishing sites can take advantage of the $SPUrl token to target HTML assets via URLs that are relative to either the site collection root ($SPUrl:~sitecollection/) or site root ($SPUrl:~site/).

• Publishing sites provide specific storage mechanisms for design assets that are not automatically available to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 sites."

Purtroppo il vero problema per la scelta lato web di Sharepoint Server è il costo della licenza piuttosto alto.

 Sembrerebbe che Microsoft con l'uscita di Sharepoint2010 stia rivedendo questo costo proprio per cercare di "migrare" più siti possibili a Sharepoint Server.