Is SharePoint Pointing the Finger at You?

In an earlier post, I outlined some of the disadvantages of SharePoint as a document management system, from my perspective. Even with these disadvantages in place, SharePoint has quickly racked up over $1 billion in software licensing sales, and continues to track towards widespread deployment. This is both a blessing and curse for electronic document management (EDM) vendors as it both raises awareness of the need to move beyond traditional file structures while encroaching in the sales territory of the traditional EDM provider.

The big question is whether your company has a SharePoint strategy?

The game is changing:

InformationWeek detailed Microsoft’s plan to discontinue it’s PerformancePoint Server, including high-end Business Intelligence (BI) tools, instead moving to bundle a subset of the suite’s features into the SharePoint collaboration platform.

According to IW, Microsoft isn’t canning the package due to poor sales. Revenues reportedly grew by 15% to $533 million in 2007 (IDC), ranking fourth in BI revenues. According to Kristina Kerr (lead Microsoft BI product manager), Microsoft’s vision is “BI for the masses.”

Why does this affect me?

If you haven’t already figured it out, Microsoft continued to bundle more “free” offerings into an already dominant platform. From the back-office to the front-office, Microsoft has a compelling case for seamless (well as seamless as Microsoft gets) integration from your Microsoft Office suite all the way through to your ERP reporting.

This will increasingly position SharePoint as the platform to link all business applications and documents together whereas many EDM applications simply attempt to either be an electronic filing cabinet or, at best, image-enable your ERP solution and enable more advanced workflow routing.

Take away the ability for SharePoint to steal your business…

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, SharePoint is something many companies will hear about one way or another. Maybe it will come bundled as part of an offering from another service provider, and maybe their CEO will see it at a local Chamber meeting and decide that’s a very cost effective intranet solution for his or her company.

Either way, it’s no longer coming… It’s here. Are you ready?

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. To connect with Ken, you may visit him at DandyID.