Que: Microsoft OneNote as a Distributed Information Item Database System > OneNote Database Basics

The text below is from the introduction of my latest OneNote article.  The article is the 5th in a series; you can find an index of links to other articles in the series on this page.  The next two topics in the series are OneNote’s collaboration capabilities and an Evernote/OneNote comparison.

Although people familiar with earlier releases of OneNote (i.e., OneNote 2003 and OneNote 2007) probably think of OneNote as a personal note-taking application, some subtle changes in OneNote 2010 have made it—in clever ways that are invisible to most users—a distributed information item database system. OneNote 2010 is still a market-leading note-taking application, but it also includes powerful database management services, when used in conjunction with Windows Live SkyDrive or Microsoft SharePoint.

This article provides an overview of OneNote’s database services and how they make it possible for OneNote users to work independently, optionally while network-disconnected, and to later synchronize their work. The next article in the series, “Compelling Collaboration Capabilities in Microsoft OneNote,” will explain how the database services support a broad range of useful collaboration scenarios.

Que: Microsoft OneNote as a Distributed Information Item Database System > OneNote Database Basics