See my notes below for an early take on new and updated SharePoint features. More important than the individual changes is the effect the release will have on the IT industry as a whole. With MOSS 2007 Microsoft pushed deep into the composition model (meaning the users build their own IT). To some extent they were successful as many adopters have grown their SharePoint intranets into large sprawling information-scapes. The downside is that the implementation methodologies across the plethora of site collections varies widely even among sites owned by the same corporate departments.

SharePoint 2010 provides the necessary infrastructure improvements to solve the issue of unbridled growth (nice to know where the horse is headed too). Properly implemented, SharePoint 2010 should allow large and small companies to create thousands of sites and collections that all share a consistent data model. What happens when products are capable of providing infrastructure and implementation frameworks for companywide IT? IT departments shrink as support and SME needs are consolidated around the new user driven technology. This phenomenon will hold true as long as the new implementations are capable of being centrally governed. Microsoft thinks so too and has included new central administration capabilities in the product. Hold on to your hats everyone, this is going to be an interesting ride that will move your business model whether you like it or not (and that’s a good thing).
» Read more: SharePoint 2010 is a Mover and a Shaker