Community

• Blogs
  • Expert Blogs
  • Community Blogs
  • Create a Blog Entry
• Discussions
  • Start a Discussion
• Job Center
• Chapters

SharePoint | Past Adolescence and Into Its Prime

• 
• 
• 
• 

For all of us living in the world of SharePoint, we are getting prepared in some fashion or another for the “really, really big” show; the Microsoft SharePoint User Conference taking place October 2-7 in Anaheim California.  People will once again congregate from around the world to share their victories and to a lesser degree, their war stories with a global community.  Attendance is expected to be someplace in the range of 12,000 to 15,000 people which eclipses the 7,500 or so people that attended the Vegas conference two years ago.  I believe at this point, it is safe to say that SharePoint is truly a force of substance and one that is consistently bringing real business value to the table.

When reflecting upon the Microsoft SharePoint conferences of the past, a different fervor was present.  In 2007 at the Seattle conference, we were all at “SharePoint camp” as semi-semi-early adapters singing Kumbaya.  The electricity was phenomenal and Mr. Gates himself keynoted as we all saw the possibility of what SharePoint represented.  And at that time, there were still many of us who were new to features of SharePoint 2007 and thus, learning about SharePoint was infectious.  

In 2009, the SharePoint conference was clearly a mainstream event and I’d argue that there was probably no other technology platform that drew in as many people that year, despite being close to the peak of the recession.  Interestingly and expectedly, the spirit of the conference was carried by all participants being blown away with the new capabilities of SharePoint 2010, coupled with a more experienced user and partner population.  The excitement and energy was even more spectacular in a Vegas sort of way and the departing sense after the conference was that we were all doing something good by being part of this world we call SharePoint.

SharePoint is truly being used as a platform for critical business applications; organizations around the world have embraced it for substantive uses and a sophisticated and mature partner channel has emerged to supplement SharePoint with added features and functionality.  In short, SharePoint has grown up and we are all quite proud of it.  This also manifests itself in more sophisticated discussions and use cases, better examples of what does and does not work and a user population that readily sees the value of the product.   A subtle, yet interesting example of SharePoint’s maturity and popularity came as a result of a discussion I had with one of the product managers. 

Don’t get me wrong in that we all look forward to comments and insights on the next generation of SharePoint.  However, the product heritage is now well-grounded and like a fine wine, will only improve with age.  With this conference, I expect it will be about contextual usage and success stories and less about SharePoint feature/function WOW factors.

So…if you think SharePoint is some punk technology that lacks innovation and material usage; I think you are living in a different world my friend.  It is here as a mission critical business platform, it is real and it has been ready for a while.

Comments

I don't live in a different world, I live in the cloud

Submitted by Daniel O'Leary September 13, 2011 - 3:42 PM

I appreciate the post Russ, and I think SharePoint is an innovative platform (not a product) and a massive improvement from legacy ECM systems.

That being said, as someone who consults with start-ups, and works with growing companies all over the world, I can tell you that NONE are going with traditional stack of on premise applications. Businesses are built on Box.net, LincDoc, SalesForce, and Google apps. Teams are distributed around the world, and work on a variety of devices.

To put it another way, SharePoint is like the 55 year old roadie who is pretending to be a punk, but everyone else in the audience is 25, and has never heard of the bands he loves.

Report

Was this helpful? Yes No

Reply

Subject  

Comment  

Right you are, but a little late

Submitted by Bas Geerdink September 30, 2011 - 4:37 PM

Russ, I agree with your blog post. However I expected this a year ago, not now. IT professionals working with SharePoint know the current state the platform is in, and are already looking forward to the next version. Next to that, enterprises don't have to be convinced to start using SharePoint anymore; they already made that decision (and are upgrading) or look at other ECM solutions.

Report

Was this helpful? Yes No

Reply

Subject  

Comment  

This post and comment(s) reflect the personal perspectives of community members, and not necessarily those of their employers or of AIIM International