Musings of an Internet Marketing Consultant
Musings of an Internet Marketing Consultant

Sunday, July 10, 2005

What exactly is SharePoint???


Since the last programming language I used (in 1975) was FORTRAN V and I have evolved into a technology business executive, I now take the approach to a product of an end user looking for key features and benefits that can enhance either my or a user's productivity (with a high degree of transparency to the underlying technology). On the other hand, I know enough about development technology to be dangerous.

Over the past couple of years I have been involved with a couple of clients who, in turn, have been involved with services related to Microsoft SharePoint. Yet, nobody has explained to me clearly what benefit SharePoint brings to either an individual or enterprise. Is it a collaboration product? Is it an enterprise portal? How can I, as an enterprise team member, contribute to it?

Well, maybe this article explains why the confusion (or lack of a real raison d'ĂȘtre as an enterprise application). No wonder Microsoft had to buy Groove -- while not a tool I would use, I can at least figure out an enterprise application for it. It seems the author of this article and I have come from different directions to the same conclusion:

"Despite its lack of support and direction from Microsoft, SharePoint Portal Server still remains a viable product for an Intranet portal, document library, and company forum. To make all of those pieces work takes a tremendous amount of effort and education that unfortunately is not readily available to the end user community."


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