By Errin O'Connor, Founder & CEO at EPC Group.net
June 20, 2012 - 2:32 AM
If I had the keys to the castle, just released Microsoft Surface and wanted to bloody the nose of Apple… and by the way, in a hand full of months was about to release the next wave of SharePoint (one of the most installed and powerful Corporate Software Platforms \ ecosytems of all time)… What would I do?
Quit Playing Nice
Ok, I get it, EMC and OpenText had nice sized booths in Anaheim last year at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference but in my experience some of the last 2 or 3 of 50 bids or so Fortune 500 projects EPC Group has bid, EMC was a SharePoint integration competitor to us for the final show down? At what point did we all say uncle and let our competition in? Yeah finally, they realized they (EMC \ OpenText) had to either play nice and integrate or get a major market share piece yanked from their coffers… And maybe in a not so stark comparison the American people have been watching American’s Got Talent (on NBC) and figured out Howard Stern isn’t the vile human being people hid ayway in alleyways from regular church going folks and is probably one of the nicest guys you will ever meet.
Yammer – That is what I would yell if I were at a family gathering and smashed my toe with a hammer, but I totally agree with the purchase.
Note: A mostly free piece of software and from a quote right off their website, “Social media has dramatically changed the way we share and connect with friends and family, and it will have an even more profound impact on the way companies operate. Giving your organization the advantage of a social foundation is critical for success in today’s fast-paced environment.
YammerSharePoint is a secure, private social network for your company. Yammer SharePoint empowers employees to be more productive and successful by enabling them to collaborate easily, make smarter decisions faster, and self-organize into teams to take on any business challenge. It is a new way of working that naturally drives business alignment and agility, reduces cycle times, engages employees and improves relationships with customers and partners.”
Hello supercharged out-of-the-box My Sites and improved SharePoint “professional networking” and to put a nice piece of spice and pizazz on one of the future versions of SharePoint (or whatever it may be called).
Skype – (FYI, we bought that too!)
You mix in the most configurable piece of business collaboration and document management software in history, add some pretty nice (amazing) features from Yammer, and then add a real time video chat solution from Skype and really what more do you want? Yeah, I am a SharePoint proponent for the last 13 or so years and have written 2 books for Microsoft Press on both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 but I swear Microsoft keeps making my job easier every day.
I am not a Band wagoner…
My firm and all of my staff at EPC Group, who by the way are much smarter than me, have serious different approaches to implementing SharePoint in a global enterprise than Microsoft Consulting Services and the other 2 or three firms similar to them. In fact, EPC Group is near the polar opposite in approach to Microsoft Consulting Services and that is not a dig at all but just fundamental approach difference. I get the licensing and sales need of Microsoft and Microsoft Consulting Services but luckily we opted out of the licensing or any piece of that side of the table. It’s time for SharePoint consultants, SharePoint firms, etc. to ask the real questions of what are you trying to accomplish, only implementing SharePoint in a Hybrid methodology, and listen to the clients real needs. Don’t sell a project and then frantically try to staff it…
On a side note, SQL Server 2012 is going to grab most of the market share of “Big Data” and Microsoft Surface might just give Apple a black eye… No more Mr. Nice guy… Let’s go for the jugular....
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