Windows SharePoint Services provides its users the facility to organize a collaborative information sharing environment on the Windows platform. It has been designed on ASP.NET on the Internet Information Services (IIS) server and is available free with Windows Server 2003. It uses a SQL Server or MSDE database back-end to store data. SharePoint Portal Server runs on top of Windows SharePoint Services which actually acts as the platform for SharePoint Portal Server in order to facilitate the access to the sites, document libraries, templates, lists, etc. According to Microsoft, "Effective information sharing and collaboration is rapidly becoming a strategic platform advantage, but that advantage can be compromised if collaboration technologies are deployed in a piecemeal fashion." This introductory article presents a basic overview of Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server in a lucid language and how these two can be instrumental in minimizing the need for custom software development.