One of the interesting things to note is that SharePoint is Microsoft's fastest growing application install and user base of all time.  This has mostly been a grass roots movement that has taken Microsoft by surprise.  That fact has been obvious in many of the painful points of developing, administering and customizing SharePoint.  Because of that, I am always interested to see what the next version of this quickly growing platform is going to fix, solve, improve, etc. 

I have been doing some reading on SharePoint 2010 and there is a lot to the new platform.  The other night, I attended a SharePoint 2010 demo and development discussion.  Let me start by saying that I have not been a huge SharePoint fan.  Since 2003, each new version of the platform has taken leaps and bounds over the previous versions.  However, Microsoft has continued to make the platform and its applications as difficult as possible to develop and maintain.  In addition, the upgrade paths between certain versions were less-than-ideal.  As a result, the SharePoint hasn't struck me as one on which I would hinge a mission critical, high-use application.  I say that knowing full well that I am in the minority with that opinion.  Up to this point, what I would call the immaturity of the SharePoint platform has overshadowed its capabilities.  That is, until now.  I have to say that I was impressed with SharePoint 2010 and see drastic improvements and major leaps forward with this new version... maybe even enough to get on board.   

Due to the "fan base" growth of SharePoint Microsoft has realigned their business model to further SharePoint.  Microsoft's efforts in this area are apparent in version 2010.  The application is gargantuan and the changes are many.  I would like to point out some of the highlights that struck me as important. 

Powershell

First of all, SharePoint 2010 now has a snap-in for the Windows Powershell that allows you to manage SharePoint within the Powershell.  If you haven't ever used Powershell, it is similar to an MS-DOS interface.  Nonetheless, this is an amazingly powerful tool, which allows you to execute SharePoint commands as well as script commands (and the two can be coupled together).  More importantly, as you script things, the output is an MS-DOS "text" type of UI, but the handles to the items are actually objects.  Thus, you can script object oriented commands within the SharePoint 2010 Powershell snap-in.  The really cool thing is that this eliminates the need for STSADM (it is about time)!!! 

To get to the SharePoint 2010 management add-in, click on Start --> Programs --> SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.

The following command would list all the SharePoint commands that are available (you will see there are a ton)
C:\users\youruser\Powershell > Get -command "*-sp*" | more

The following command returns what appears to be a list of the SharePoint sites. 
C:\users\youruser\Powershell > Get -SPSite

However, it is actually returning a Site Collection Object that is fully enumerable within this scripting environment.  The following command loops through the collection and removes each site. 
C:\users\youruser\Powershell > Get -SPSite -Limit All |
Foreach{
                RemoveSPSite -identity $_.Id
}

If you get stuck within the management shell, you will find there is an extensive amount of help.  There is help on just about everything.  For example, the find more information about the Get-SPSite, you would use the following:
C:\users\youruser\Powershell > Get-Help Get-SPSite.

Other Points Worthy of Mention:

Other than the simplified management of the SharePoint world, let me go through a few of the great new features...

1. Visual Studio.NET 2010 contains a fully SharePoint-Aware programming interface and its assemblies.  There is an all-encompassing SharePoint project type and you can develop in Windows 7 64-bit (FINALLY)!!!!
    
2. LINQ to SharePoint is now supported.
    
3. SharePoint 2010 now has a native Visual Web Part and is much easier to use.  This means that Web Parts are no longer just code but also support the Visual IDE interface just like any of other out-of-the-box .NET control.
    
4. SharePoint 2010 is AJAX-enabled and includes quite a bit of Silverlight.
    
5. SharePoint 2010 includes/supports the Office Ribbon.
    
6. There is a new "Sync to SharePoint" workspace that includes offline storage and working space for SharePoint lists.
    
7. In SharePoint 2010, you can now do radio buttons within an out-of-the-box SharePoint list.
    
8. You can enforce relationships within Linked-Lists right out-of-the-box.
    
9. When doing a Linked-List in SharePoint 2010, you can now show multiple display columns from the parent list.
    
10. There is a utility - SPMETAL - that is part of SharePoint's 14 Hive that you can use to generate the C# files off the database.  This is similar to generating an XSD for Link-to-Entity within an Entity Diagram.  This also gives you a quick and dirty code stub for your list and your Web Part that helps to quickly get you developing a list aware Web Part with relational lists.  
     
11. You now have active deployment scripts as part of the out-of-the-box solution.  This replaces the need for WSPBuilder.  
     
12. There is now rich look and feel editing - as if you were using Microsoft Word.  There is no more lame editing.
     
13. You can pretty much put Web Parts anywhere -  even in the middle of a Rich Content type.
     
14. Visual Studio.NET 2010 now has real-time debugging for SharePoint 2010 - just hit the "Go" button. 
     
15. You now have Intellisense on LINQ Entities within SharePoint 2010, within Visual Studio.NET 2010.
     
16. SharePoint 2010 has evolved the BDC (Business Data Catalog) into Business Connectivity Services.  This now gives a broader and more integrated ability to connect to external data sources and consume external data within SharePoint.  This provides more of an out-of-the-box ability to connect to an external system using SharePoint designer.  This data now comes back as a list and provides edit, update and delete capabilities to systems outside of SharePoint.  In other words, you can now "easily" write any external providers to surface into SharePoint. 

There are hundreds of other exciting things about SharePoint 2010.  In a nutshell, the drastic improvements in developability, integration and administration, along with what seems to be a new direction of support, development effort and marketing from Microsoft, might just make 2010 the year to get on the SharePoint bandwagon. 

If you don't want to take it from me, take it from a SharePoint developer... "My Top Three Favorite Things About SharePoint 2010"  http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=1001031