SharePoint vs. Connections: The Battle Continues

A decent story on IBM Connections, worth reading but some points bear closer examination:

1. The article states that SharePoint started off as a document management system.

That's really not accurate in my view. SharePoint started off as two distinct pieces: SharePoint Team Services (at best, targeting document/file sharing and ad-hoc collaboration) and SharePoint Portal. Capabilities expected in what the industry would call a "document management system" were seriously lacking in the early versions of SharePoint. Only with the latest release (MOSS 2007) can you actually position the platform as part of an enterprise content management solution.

SharePoint is clearly challenged in its implementation of blogs and wikis (you either run out to Codeplex or use a partner). It also appears that enabling social networks within SharePoint can take a fair amount of customization. Still, I still find many organizations placing bets on Microsoft. This indicates that the decision criteria is much broader than a comparison to Connections itself. I still maintain that IBM has a chance to "head Microsoft off at the pass" by delivering first-class integration between Connections and SharePoint and relegate SharePoint to a workspace/document management system.  I still find pricing concerns over Connections cited by organizations that end up going with Microsoft. Also, those organizations that do not have "burning requirements" for blogs, wikis, etc seem more willing to sit back and wait for Microsoft to fix it in the next release. (Note: Overall, I'm not sure IT organizations have the framework needed to discover and asses the type of soft requirements associated with community-building, social networks and emergent collaboration - perhaps a reason for a natural inclination to go with establisher players).

2. The article represents a view that I also often find when talking to clients about Connections. People wonder if it would be better for IBM to converge QuickR and Connection into a single platform to compete better with Microsoft. IBM seems to dismiss that view as simply a naming and branding challenge and that integration does provide a seamless user experience.

Both views are pretty accurate. In some situations - Quickr solves different problems than Connections (and visa-versa). On the other hand, people are confused when IBM has to run through a large number of product SKU's to solve a problem when Microsoft answers simply with "SharePoint". So there is a valid argument that IBM needs to accept and not treat it as a packaging issue. The argument also rightly points out that Connections does indeed have significant functional gaps - there is no wiki component - there is no feed management component (ala NewsGator or Attensa) - the blogging component is not the same (Roller) as what is used by Domino and Quickr. Yes, IBM has partners to fill those gaps for Connections (e.g., Socialtext for the wiki). But it's unclear then how Socialtext works within a Domino or Quickr environment. If you look at the integration between SharePoint and Confluence - it seems more bi-directional than what IBM has achieved so far. There seem to be "Connections partners" that are not encouraged to integrate with the traditional Notes/Domino and Quickr platforms.

So overall, I still do not see the rapid build-out of a robust partner ecosystem around Connections that I would have expected by a company whose collaboration business is so threatened by SharePoint over the next couple of years. Perhaps at Lotusphere 2009 well see more. The RIM integration is great - but there needs to be a greater sense of urgency by IBM to keep up with Microsoft's traction in the market. For me, the Connections/Quickr synergies are key, along with an open framework for partners to "plug in" best-of-breed vendors (but to do so, the business models for those vendors have to span beyond Connections - Socialtext integration with Quickr and Domino for instance).

I was also surprised that the article did not mention Jive - perhaps the only "mini stack" on-premises alternative to IBM and Microsoft. 

Understanding Lotus Connections, IBM's Version of Web 2.0 For The Enterprise - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

Since launching last year, Lotus Connections entered a crowded market of enterprise 2.0 vendors, companies that had taken popular Web 2.0 technologies in the consumer space like blogs, wikis and social networks and repurposed them for businesses. IBM found familiar foes as well, including Microsoft, who added social software features to its SharePoint platform.

Understanding Lotus Connections, IBM's Version of Web 2.0 For The Enterprise - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

Comments

[indrayam]

Nice summary Mike.

I do strongly believe that if the folks at Jive execute on their vision, they would indeed be sporting a solid Social Computing stack (minus features like ECM and seamless integration with other more established Communication tools)

Anand

[RTodd]

The only thing that I would point out is that Sharepoint’s value really isn’t in the Blog, Wiki, or any other single element (Web Part) of the environment. The greatest value is the ability to combine the various elements into an application that can adapt and vary based on the needs of the organization. If you want a wiki or a blog then SharePoint will disappoint you. But if you want to integrate a Blog or Wiki into a solution environment then the other tools will take you down a long road.

[Ashley]

Mike -- The partner ecosystem philosophy is really a key component of SharePoint's go-to-market. In addition to that, SP is truly a development environment that enables partners, like us with NewsGator Social Sites, to solve business problems in unique ways compared to the approaches the mega-platforms will be able to do. We're combining our RSS heritage with social metadata to expand on SharePoint's built-in capabilities.

A structural problem that I think Lotus has is that many IT organizations are not trying to add more complexity to their environments -- adding DB2, Tivoli, etc to an IT organization that knows SQL Server, AD, etc is a hard pill to swallow. This goes both ways, of course.

Ashley

[Adrian Spender]

Ashley, whilst you make an interesting point your specific example is somewhat defeated by the fact that Lotus Connections supports both MS SQL Server as a database and Active Directory for an enterprise directory.

[Adrian Spender]

Sorry, I should add the fact that I work for IBM and on Lotus Connections. End of disclaimer.

[Ashley]

@Adrian -- Hi there! That's only part of the argument, however. The fact that MSFT has approached SharePoint as a platform is significant in that SharePoint enables customers and partners to innovate on top of it.

[Steve]

@Ashley. Can you actually explain what you mean by this? Are you saying Sharepoint requires customization, and doesn't work out of the box? How is it different from Connection's ability to behave as a platform and leverage open standards, such as REST?

[Gordon]

Am I missing something or how did social software tools etc. separate themselves from the comcept of a "portal" Ex. IBM Connections versus this functionality and capability inherently part of IBM Websphere Portal?

[luis benitez]

Ashley/Adrian,

Looks like NewsGator is now hiring a Lotus Connections developer. Guess you can develop on the Lotus Connections platform after all ;).

Now, if you truly want a platform, why not start with WebSphere Portal which integrates out-of-the-box with Lotus Connections and which has thousands of partner built solutions out there ??

Sharepoint, in my opinion, like WebSphere Portal, is not social software out of the box.. but we can built social software capabilities by add-ons (such as Lotus Connections).

In my experience, however, customers want solutions that work out-of-the-box with very little customization needed.

[SharePoint Samson]

i agree with luiz when he says cutomers want out of the box solutions, especially smaller customers, who really do not have the need for the amount of customization that big firms need. both connections and SP are huge implementation products. the functionality that smaller companies really need (doc management with versioning etc), intranet/extranet portals with some amount of customization, forums, polls etc are provided by web based solutions (for example hyperoffice), and all they need is a sign up and have a "push button" near instant setup.

[Jordan Frank]

The Battle Continues: SharePoint and Connections vs. Enterprise 2.0 suites.

In a tough economic climate which coincides with broad acceptance of emerging "2.0" technology, it's becoming clear that this is the time when companies will choose to do more, with Enterprise 2.0 suites, for less.

http://traction.tractionsoftware.com/traction/permalink/Blog904

[Lizet]

I'm now talking from an end user perspective only. From the usability point of view, have you tried using Lotus Notes? Have you tried using Outlook or Outlook Express?
From a junior developer point of view, have you tried adding an app to Lotus Notes, have you tried to add an app to Outlook?
Have you tried to do a web part for SharePoint? have you tried to add to Connections?
In my case, I would say Microsoft has the advantage. It is inexpensive, has a fairly big open source community on CodePlex (has grown quite a bit over time) and has tons of documentation, code camps, forums. Try the same for any IBM product and the best you can get is 1/2 hour of the time of an 150 dollars an hour consultant.
imho, Lotus Notes is a dying dinosaur and the only reason why it's still alive is because its main customers are in the financial sector, and big financial companies are not precisely agile and easy to change. Poor users...

[Srini]

Is there an updated version of the same comparison with the latest offering of both IBM and Sharepoint?