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What is SharePoint? The Basics Overview
The primary function of SharePoint is to improve collaboration among people. It IS Microsoft's collaboration platform.

Versions
SharePoint comes in different versions and licensing models. SharePoint Foundation is the free version of SharePoint and provides all the basic collaboration features. SharePoint 2010 Server (Professional or Enterprise) is the licensed version that includes features for web content management, enterprise search business intelligence and more. There are also different licensing models for internet sites and search.

Basic Collaboration Features
Site, libraries and lists are the basic collaboration features of SharePoint.

A site in SharePoint looks like any other web site. A site contains pages and a page can contain web parts for functionality. A site can be setup for a department, meeting, project or process.

Libraries are used to store documents and files. Metadata (fields) can be added to a library to attach to each file uploaded which makes it easier to categorize and search them.

Lists are used to store information and data. The information or data is store as metadata (fields) just like libraries.

Web Parts
Web parts are added to pages within a site to make them functional. A web part is automatically created for libraries and lists when they're created that provide compressed views of the items contained within them. You can, of course, add third party web parts or create your own web parts that provide almost any type of function.