In the March 6 BPM VIEWPOINT on ebizQ (Gold Club membership required but it is free), I asked whether Microsoft SharePoint was floor wax or dessert topping. In retrospect, I realize there are not many readers that remember the Chevy-Chase routine from the 1970s Saturday Night Live (SNL).
But Dan Keldsen, author of the SharePoint study that I mentioned in the article was one of them. The study was put out by AiiM and Dan's company, Information Architected. Dan sent in this commentary. He also defends some of the criticism I had of the report:
"SNL meets MOSS, eh?
"Dennis - Thanks for the coverage, and I have to say, that SNL clip is one of my favorites. Perfect choice. Certainly applies (more than aptly) to MOSS.
"I'm all for a versatile toolkit, but it does make you wonder - what IS MOSS, anyway?
"Incidentally, while *I* prefer to talk about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 as MOSS (or MOSS2007), it seems that more people recognize SharePoint as the branding over MOSS.
"To your point on the 10 respondents who had abandoned SharePoint for various reasons... the survey was built to only ask those who had dropped SharePoint exactly why that was. It's the sort of question that seems obvious to ask, but to be honest, I haven't seen anyone else ask. Which leaves us (the world) with pure, off the cuff, heard 'round the water cooler hearsay.
"For all the money that Microsoft is making on SharePoint, there is a remarkable lack of information on what it's good for, what it's not, what it even is (without instantly diverting into a "well, a partner or integrator could provide that" conversation), and so on. So, with any luck, we've advanced the awareness of the world as to what SharePoint may or may not be good for.
"And we've been busy answering the near 100 questions we'd received on a recent webinar regarding SharePoint. All made publicly available, alongside other SharePoint resources at: http://www.informationarchitected.com/moss09wp
"SharePoint is causing a massive upswell of awareness on many fronts - content, process, collaboration, search - and while it is not "free" as many people seem to think, it just might drive down costs and enable faster solutions, IF you use it for the right purposes.
"Thanks again for the coverage, Dan Keldsen Co-founder Information Architected"
Thanks for the feedback, Dan. And to one of his points, based on some other research I am working on in my day job (see link at right), Microsoft says SharePoint is now an over $1 billion business for it.
It looks like you are voting for SharePoint with your pocketbooks as well as in Dan's survey results.
-- Dennis Byron
Leave a comment