Community Input: SharePoint 2010

OK - this is all draft - nothing is final - everything below is a work-in-progress. I wanted to obtain feedback though... leave comments, thanks...

Context
Losing the battle but winning the war?

• Many organizations have invested in Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 as strategic infrastructure for content management and collaboration.
• However, the market responded negatively to the social tools included within MOSS 2007. Thought-leadership was lost as competitors (e.g., IBM, Jive) delivered social platforms that were far superior to what was delivered out-of-the-box by Microsoft. Microsoft partners (e.g., Atlassian, NewsGator) whose products integrated into SharePoint in ways that alleviated some of the worst functionality (e.g., wikis and communities) filled gaps in social tooling. 
• Burton Group research on enterprise social networking in 2008 found that organizations were tired of tool-by-tool approaches when it came to social tools (blogs, wikis, social networking). This buyer-preference has included virtually all vendors to expand offerings of single social tools into suites or platforms.
• That same research also indicates that many organizations often position internal social computing efforts (e.g., Enterprise 2.0, social networking) as a component in their overall collaboration strategy. The association that social computing is tightly interwoven with collaboration strategies has influenced some decision-makers that technology solutions are therefore best enabled through a single platform.
• These dynamics favor a strong social computing comeback by Microsoft as SharePoint 2010 improves on its core collaboration tools but also delivers (based on current beta), social capabilities that, while not best-of-breed, are comparable to current market offerings.

Thesis

• Improvements in SharePoint 2010 make it a compelling social computing platform for organizations interested in an intranet on-premises solution that includes tightly-coupled infrastructure for collaboration, content, and search.
• Strategists that dismissed leveraging MOSS 2007 for social computing will re-visit that decision in situations where SP2010 remains strategic overall
• Re-evaluation of third-party extensions to SharePoint will be a natural part of that due diligence process
• Competitive offerings will be assessed by how well they integrate in an overall SP2010 ecosystem - even when the competitive offering is retained for its social capabilities
• However, Microsoft’s long-term impact on social computing trends will not dominate if organizations have to wait another 3-4 years before subsequent enhancements to application-layer capabilities.

Thesis Key Points

1. Intranet on-premises solution: Right now, I don't see SP2010 being viable/credible for external social media if organizations objectively compare/contrast what the market offers with competitive solutions. Also, there is still a lack of parity between SaaS and on-premises that may leave customers not being able to deploy hybrid environments or pursue more pure SaaS-based solutions. I think the SaaS weakness will hurt Microsoft in external social media scenarios as well. Competitors that have consistent external/internal solutions are viewed well by clients I talk to that are looking for cohesion across social tooling for communities and social networks that span internal and external audiences as well as support for consumer social web standards and integration with consumer public social sites.
2. Tightly-coupled infrastructure: These is not a lot of architectural modularity in my opinion. There are more integration points however, and a lot of cross-dependencies, and inability to really substitute components.
3. But - for self-described "Microsoft Shops" this release will be good enough to satisfy the vast majority of IT organizations. It should even cause Microsoft to regain some lost accounts that are using other products. I've already talked to a few that are at least pausing to have that discussion.
• Note: I chose wording here carefully - SP2010 is a release that IT organizations will like because it makes life easier in SharePoint shops (development, operations). However - technology is not the deciding factor when it comes to social computing - even with this release, organizations that focus on the user experience, community, and social networking needs of people in business areas can still make a credible case for solutions that leverage alternative technology platforms.
• Alleged IT cost savings by going with a single solution is only one side of the coin. Strategists need to weight IT costs vs. business benefits to get a total perspective. Sometimes SharePoint will make sense, sometimes it will not. It does not defacto make things better or easier from a business perspective.
• Granted - determining the intangible organizational value of social computing is not easy. Although, for instance, I find most of my Jive solutions in shops that have SharePoint. That might have been because of the deficiencies in MOSS 2007 but it also could be due to Jive being a very good social platform. Organizations need to avoid making this decision based solely on IT costs and vendor preferences from IT organizations. 
4. However - the last point is critical - Microsoft needs to come out with a story (believable) that it will somehow be able to release application-layer feature upgrades more quickly than 3-4 years. That could be the tipping point for some organizations to keep investing in a more modular, loosely-coupled architecture and keep their "social platform" separate from SharePoint.

Comments

[Herkens]

Good sum up, Mike!
I write my diploma thesis about MOSS 2007 as an Enterprise 2.0 tool.
I also think MS will regain some customers with the 2010 release but they have to put more emphasis on constant updates. I mean the Web 2.0 is about parpetual beta, but MS did not get that. Smaller companies like Jive with the focus on Social Software got that point right.

SharePoint is a business tool for so many usecases. I mean take a look at the pillars. Maybe it has gotten too big and you are right they should seperate some parts. Today i read an aricle about that:
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2010/01/27/sharepoint-2010-overkill-some-forrester-says
IBM has a differne approach. They try to offer a plattform with seperate module-like offerings. The problem here is that they do not itegrate as well as complete suite. Maybe MS should go this way and try to build a web-bases collaboration suite with modules like there unified communication offering with Exchange and Communication Server.

[Talonen]

Thank you for the good post, Mike. I agree with most of your points. Too bad we have to wait so long to see how everything turns out.

Herkens, I'd be happy to hear more of your thoughts on MOSS 2007 and Enterprise 2.0 since I'm working on a similar project right now. You'll find me on Twitter..

[Eric Sauve, VP NewsGator Technologies]

Mike,

This is interesting analysis.

One thing that I would place more emphasis on is on SharePoint as a platform rather than simply an application, and relatedly the partner community of technology vendors that augment it. In my mind, it is kind of like looking at the iPhone without considering the App Store of third party vendors -

For example, considering Thesis point #1, while SP 2010 may not be a viable solution for external sites right now, partners such as Tomoye (now NewsGator) have a lite-weight, market-proven, web-ready solution ON the SharePoint platform that is deployed externally facing. This means that IT organizations don't have to ditch their vision for externally facing SharePoint, but go for a proven vendor that allows them to meet the point solution requirement as well as maintain their focus on Microsoft as the platform of choice.

And similarly, related to point #4 of your thesis, if we look at SharePoint as a platform and not simply as an application, and we note a rich set of partners that build on top of it, the pressure is less to iterate quicker for application layer features - as this is done by the partners who deploy seamlessly on it. This allows Microsoft to continue to built its integrated plumbing (of which it is unmatched) and have partners travel the distance to out-of-the-box point solutions for social computing, externally facing communities, etc.

If you are a Microsoft SharePoint shop, a point solution on SharePoint is way better than one that is not for so many reasons.... When things stay on SP you more easily allow for information cross-pollination, more seamless authentication, cross-site searching, etc, etc - you also are more able to leverage internal IT expertise and infrastructure.

Anyways - my 2 cents from someone deep into the SharePoint marketplace :)

[Asif]

Thank you Mike for giving such an interesting and dedicated analysis.