Microsoft on Monday shipped the next pre-release version of its Tahoe document management server. The company says it will sell the software later this year under the name SharePoint Portal Server.

Microsoft says the package, which it has been beta testing since last year under the Tahoe code name, could create a mass market for software that lets companies index and search for Office documents, E-mail messages, and Web pages based on their text and attributes, such as who created them. This week, Microsoft issued the first "release candidate," which indicates a near-final version of the software. Other vendors, including Documentum, sell similar products.

SharePoint Portal Server employs a data store that houses both structured data, such as entries in a database, alongside the unstructured data found in Office documents, E-mail messages, and electronic calendar entries. A company running Tahoe could build apps out of the box that search Windows file servers, Exchange public folders (but not private mailboxes), Lotus Notes databases, and Internet or intranet sites, all from a single interface, Microsoft says. Adobe Systems is writing filters that would let the SharePoint server search for PDF documents, and Corel is doing the same for WordPerfect files, says Microsoft product manager Trina Seinfeld.

SharePoint Portal Server is expected to go on sale this spring. The server must run atop Windows 2000. Clients interfacing with the software must run Windows 2000, NT 4 Workstation, or Windows 98 to take advantage of all SharePoint's features. A plug-in for the Windows Explorer feature of Microsoft's desktop operating systems won't work with Windows 95 machines, though users may still access SharePoint Portal Server through a Web browser on those systems, Microsoft says. Users also must have Office 2000.