BUSINESS SOFTWARE FOR THE MIDMARKET
SharePoint alternatives seek to fill in the gaps
Christina Torode, Senior News Writer
12.18.2008
When it comes to departmental file sharing or collaborative workspaces, Microsoft's SharePoint has legions of fans in midsized companies. But for those not interested in paying for SharePoint (the basic version is free), or who find some features immature in the latest version, there are SharePoint alternatives.
The reason for SharePoint adoption is clear: Many organizations (and non-IT departments) began grassroots deployments after they upgraded to Windows Server and got a basic SharePoint feature set for free. There were also products in the SharePoint family available for a fee, including SharePoint Portal Server 2003, which many organizations used as a steppingstone to Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS 2007). MOSS 2007 is a major upgrade from SharePoint Server 2003, with a lot more functionality.
The move to MOSS 2007 seems to be natural once users install Office 2007. A Forrester Research Inc. survey conducted in March of 233 IT decision makers using Office 2007 showed that 24% said they had immediate plans to move to MOSS 2007 and 41% expected to install it within six months. And in yet-to-be-published research, Information Architected Inc. found that of 400 respondents surveyed, the majority of the midmarket companies already had MOSS 2007 installed. Midmarket companies accounted for 35% of the respondents, and among this group, half said price was not an inhibitor for MOSS deployments. Although nearly half -- 46% -- said the price was higher than they expected.
SharePoint add-ons:
A sampling
Microsoft typically leaves plenty of room for partners and competitors to fill in the gaps when it releases a new technology. Startups have grown out of developing applications and tools for Microsoft's server and desktop management products, and behemoths have built security add-ons for the Windows OS for years.
This tradition is continuing with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007). Below is a sampling of the many SharePoint add-ons now available.
NewsGator Social Sites 2.5 is a social computing enhancement that lets users create community discussions around documents within SharePoint.
MOSS Faceted Search is a free set of Web parts that refine search results by category.
Colligo for SharePoint lets users drag and drop emails and attachments into document libraries and gives mobile workers offline access to SharePoint.
Site Administrator for SharePoint from Quest Software Inc. comes with 30 standard reports and allows IT to manage permissions and set policies in SharePoint.
"When we asked [the survey respondents] if the cost of MOSS was in line with their expectations or more than they expected, 50% said the cost was pretty much in line with their expectations," said Carl Frappaolo, co-founder and principle of Boston-based Information Architected.
Microsoft estimates MOSS pricing at $4,424 for a server license and $94 per client access license in the U.S.
Microsoft's strategy with SharePoint is to undercut competing enterprise content management (ECM) products that are perceived as complex and expensive, with a product that promises ease of use, flexibility and a less costly enterprise-scale feature set. One key benefit is its tight integration with other Microsoft products such as Exchange Server, Office Communications Server, Office Live Meeting and Live Workspace. Simplicity allows business departments to create their own team workspaces.
"Basic functions like workspaces typically come first and getting governance around that, then people tend to explore other areas [of SharePoint] based on pain points or risk factors," said Rob Koplowitz, an analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester.
MOSS' capabilities range from basic collaboration to portal creation and business intelligence content management. Yet MOSS' breadth is both too much and not enough for some midmarket users.
While the portal capabilities in MOSS are mature, for example, some companies are holding off on what they perceive as less-developed features in the suite, such as social networking, enterprise search and Web content management capabilities. These companies are waiting until Microsoft releases the next version, Koplowitz said.
Another potential drawback is a dearth in skill sets, as well as a lack of SharePoint documentation coming from Microsoft, said John Bissa, a partner and Web development team leader at accounting firm Plante & Moran PLLC in Southfield, Mich. On the surface, SharePoint is easy to get off the ground, but he said he's finding that people quickly get in over their heads.
"There's a lot of bad SharePoint [deployments] out there because there are more people deploying it than those who know how to use it," he said.
The alternatives
Although SharePoint appears to be on a lot of CIOs' agendas, midmarket businesses have plenty of other choices.
There's integration with enterprise content management systems. IBM offers integration between FileNet ECM and MOSS 2007, for example. Fellow competitor Oracle Corp. has made it possible for users to access Oracle Universal Content Management files from the SharePoint interface.
There's a lot of bad SharePoint [deployments] out there because there are more people deploying it than those who know how to use it. John Bissa
partner and Web development team leader, Plante & Moran PLLC
There are also third-party add-ons (see related story, above right).
Lotus Notes and Domino's collaboration and content management capabilities are often stacked up as a SharePoint alternative, as are Lotus Quickr and Novell's SiteScape for workspaces. There is also Oracle's WebCenter suite for portals and Web application development and its Beehive online workplace.
Open Text Corp., with its ECM suite, is another company that both competes and integrates with SharePoint.
Competing products and vendors in the Web 2.0 space include Jive Software's Clearspace business social community software, which has customers in the midsized market, and Atlassian Software Systems Pty Ltd. and Socialtext Inc. These started out as wikis but are broadening their community-based collaborative offerings.
For open source alternatives, Alfresco Software Inc. has its ECM platform and Drupal is free software that lets you build community workspaces and portals.
Yet for all these options, SharePoint may be the 800-pound gorilla -- at least for now.
"Competitors are trying to do similar things [as SharePoint], but they really only have point solutions in comparison," said Peter O'Kelly, a Boston-based independent industry analyst.
Let us know what you think about the story; email: Christina Torode, Senior News Writer.
Showing posts with label Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS). Show all posts
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Bring Your SharePoint Sites Under Control…
Bring Your SharePoint Sites Under Control…
SharePoint has become one of the most popular, fastest-growing products ever shipped by Microsoft®. It’s designed to be easy to deploy and manage without significant IT involvement or expertise.
That’s the good news…the bad news is that the ease and convenience of SharePoint can create a security nightmare, especially if sensitive data winds up on the wrong site.
Key Features & Benefits
Know what SharePoint sites are in use – automatically locate and identify sites.
Determine who has access rights – Identify users and groups with access to the site and evaluate their permissions and access rights.
Identify security issues – Highlight users or groups with access rights that are inconsistent with corporate policy or industry best practices.
Correct deficiencies – Integration with Courion’s compliance solutions provides managers with the ability to quickly and effectively remediate permissions and inappropriate access rights.
Reduce or eliminate potential security risks – Verify that only users with the appropriate permissions have access to SharePoint sites containing sensitive data.
SharePoint Identity and Access Concerns
SharePoint is powerful, flexible and easy to implement, but it has a limited security and governance model.
Given the popularity of SharePoint, system administrators and security personnel have some thorny questions they need to answer:
What SharePoint sites are on our network and who owns them?
Who has access to these sites and what Permissions do they have?
Are sites with sensitive data are being managed using best practices consistent with the organization’s security policies?
How can I fix sites that are exposing the organization to security problems?
Protect Your SharePoint Sites
Courion, a leader in access management and compliance, has responded to customer’s needs by producing Courion Solutions for SharePoint, which gives IT managers the ability to analyze, evaluate and manage an organization’s exposure to risk as a result of inadequate SharePoint governance.
The solution is designed to enable system administrators to identify and reduce risk by remediating inappropriate access to SharePoint sites and bringing them into compliance with corporate policy. Using Courion, you can be assured that SharePoint users aren’t opening security holes and demonstrate to your auditors or industry regulators that you’re in compliance with corporate policy.
Courion Solutions for SharePoint can scan a SharePoint server and identify all the SharePoint sites on the server. For each site, the solution identifies all users who have access rights to the site. If the organization uses Active Directory, Courion also identifies users and groups who have been granted access to SharePoint sites through their Active Directory profile.
If the administrator determines that users have inappropriate rights to access data on a SharePoint site, he or she has the option to initiate a process to remediate those rights.
The administrator examining the SharePoint site can perform the following reviews:
Policy Review
This process allows the IT administrator to review a list of potential policy violations (such as a Finance portal with “Everyone” group access enabled). He or she can select a particular policy violation, evaluate the security implications of the violation and accept or modify the site configuration.
Privileged Access
The Privileged Access review allows the administrator to identify individuals with elevated SharePoint privileges (such as Administrator or Web Designer) and the sites where they are privileged access. If a user is identified as having inappropriate privileged access, action can be taken to either block the individual from accessing the site or reduce their permissions level.
Site Access
This workflow allows the IT manager to review a list of sites. After selecting a site, the manager sees a list of all users with access to the site, sorted by their permission level. At that point, the manager can select individual users and accept or modify their access rights to the site.
SharePoint has become one of the most popular, fastest-growing products ever shipped by Microsoft®. It’s designed to be easy to deploy and manage without significant IT involvement or expertise.
That’s the good news…the bad news is that the ease and convenience of SharePoint can create a security nightmare, especially if sensitive data winds up on the wrong site.
Key Features & Benefits
Know what SharePoint sites are in use – automatically locate and identify sites.
Determine who has access rights – Identify users and groups with access to the site and evaluate their permissions and access rights.
Identify security issues – Highlight users or groups with access rights that are inconsistent with corporate policy or industry best practices.
Correct deficiencies – Integration with Courion’s compliance solutions provides managers with the ability to quickly and effectively remediate permissions and inappropriate access rights.
Reduce or eliminate potential security risks – Verify that only users with the appropriate permissions have access to SharePoint sites containing sensitive data.
SharePoint Identity and Access Concerns
SharePoint is powerful, flexible and easy to implement, but it has a limited security and governance model.
Given the popularity of SharePoint, system administrators and security personnel have some thorny questions they need to answer:
What SharePoint sites are on our network and who owns them?
Who has access to these sites and what Permissions do they have?
Are sites with sensitive data are being managed using best practices consistent with the organization’s security policies?
How can I fix sites that are exposing the organization to security problems?
Protect Your SharePoint Sites
Courion, a leader in access management and compliance, has responded to customer’s needs by producing Courion Solutions for SharePoint, which gives IT managers the ability to analyze, evaluate and manage an organization’s exposure to risk as a result of inadequate SharePoint governance.
The solution is designed to enable system administrators to identify and reduce risk by remediating inappropriate access to SharePoint sites and bringing them into compliance with corporate policy. Using Courion, you can be assured that SharePoint users aren’t opening security holes and demonstrate to your auditors or industry regulators that you’re in compliance with corporate policy.
Courion Solutions for SharePoint can scan a SharePoint server and identify all the SharePoint sites on the server. For each site, the solution identifies all users who have access rights to the site. If the organization uses Active Directory, Courion also identifies users and groups who have been granted access to SharePoint sites through their Active Directory profile.
If the administrator determines that users have inappropriate rights to access data on a SharePoint site, he or she has the option to initiate a process to remediate those rights.
The administrator examining the SharePoint site can perform the following reviews:
Policy Review
This process allows the IT administrator to review a list of potential policy violations (such as a Finance portal with “Everyone” group access enabled). He or she can select a particular policy violation, evaluate the security implications of the violation and accept or modify the site configuration.
Privileged Access
The Privileged Access review allows the administrator to identify individuals with elevated SharePoint privileges (such as Administrator or Web Designer) and the sites where they are privileged access. If a user is identified as having inappropriate privileged access, action can be taken to either block the individual from accessing the site or reduce their permissions level.
Site Access
This workflow allows the IT manager to review a list of sites. After selecting a site, the manager sees a list of all users with access to the site, sorted by their permission level. At that point, the manager can select individual users and accept or modify their access rights to the site.
Courion Survey: Most Corporations Ignore Microsoft SharePoint Security and Data Risks
Courion Survey: Most Corporations Ignore Microsoft SharePoint Security and Data Risks
Courion Corporation
87% of Companies Cite SharePoint as a Source of Concern for Sensitive Data Leaks; Two Thirds Do Not Have Tools to Monitor and Control SharePoint Usage FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ --
WHAT: Courion(R) Corporation, leaders in access management and compliance, releases survey results revealing that while many organizations are adopting collaborative work environments such as Microsoft SharePoint to improve productivity, they are not effectively addressing the considerable security and compliance risks associated with these environments.
DETAILS: A survey of more than 150 business managers reveals that companies are largely unaware of what is happening within Microsoft SharePoint Environments. They do not know if sensitive data is being shared in these sites, who is using these sites, who has access to them and who needs access. And in many cases, companies do not even have acceptable use policies in place for SharePoint, nor is there anyone in the organization responsible for ensuring SharePoint security and compliance.
Key survey results include:
-- The majority of respondents (86.7%) cite SharePoint as a point of
concern for data theft.
-- More than one-third (33.8%) of respondents do not have a policy defining
acceptable usage for SharePoint.
-- More than 36% of companies do not currently monitor their SharePoint
usage.
-- Nearly two-thirds (62.7%) do not currently have tools in place to
monitor SharePoint usage, access or policy compliance
Courion recommends that organizations establish risk-based governance and controls in these environments to ensure long term security and compliance with business policy and industry regulations. System administrators and security personnel need to be able to answer the following questions:
-- What SharePoint sites are on our network and who owns them?
-- Who has access to these sites and what Permissions do they have?
-- Are sites with sensitive data being managed using best practices
consistent with the organization's security policies?
-- How can I fix sites that are exposing the organization to security
problems?
To download a copy of the survey report, please visit: http://www.courion.com/solutions/sharepoint.aspx
To arrange an interview with experts who can discuss SharePoint security and compliance issues, contact:
Brenda Menard
Davies Murphy Group
bmenard@daviesmurphy.com
781-418-2435
Courion Corporation
87% of Companies Cite SharePoint as a Source of Concern for Sensitive Data Leaks; Two Thirds Do Not Have Tools to Monitor and Control SharePoint Usage FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ --
WHAT: Courion(R) Corporation, leaders in access management and compliance, releases survey results revealing that while many organizations are adopting collaborative work environments such as Microsoft SharePoint to improve productivity, they are not effectively addressing the considerable security and compliance risks associated with these environments.
DETAILS: A survey of more than 150 business managers reveals that companies are largely unaware of what is happening within Microsoft SharePoint Environments. They do not know if sensitive data is being shared in these sites, who is using these sites, who has access to them and who needs access. And in many cases, companies do not even have acceptable use policies in place for SharePoint, nor is there anyone in the organization responsible for ensuring SharePoint security and compliance.
Key survey results include:
-- The majority of respondents (86.7%) cite SharePoint as a point of
concern for data theft.
-- More than one-third (33.8%) of respondents do not have a policy defining
acceptable usage for SharePoint.
-- More than 36% of companies do not currently monitor their SharePoint
usage.
-- Nearly two-thirds (62.7%) do not currently have tools in place to
monitor SharePoint usage, access or policy compliance
Courion recommends that organizations establish risk-based governance and controls in these environments to ensure long term security and compliance with business policy and industry regulations. System administrators and security personnel need to be able to answer the following questions:
-- What SharePoint sites are on our network and who owns them?
-- Who has access to these sites and what Permissions do they have?
-- Are sites with sensitive data being managed using best practices
consistent with the organization's security policies?
-- How can I fix sites that are exposing the organization to security
problems?
To download a copy of the survey report, please visit: http://www.courion.com/solutions/sharepoint.aspx
To arrange an interview with experts who can discuss SharePoint security and compliance issues, contact:
Brenda Menard
Davies Murphy Group
bmenard@daviesmurphy.com
781-418-2435
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
SharePoint Proving a Goldmine for Microsoft Partners
About 80 percent of businesses are expected to be using SharePoint by 2010, according to Gartner. That means for the Microsoft channel community, SharePoint is a potential goldmine, a repeat revenue generator, and customer relationship builder – if you get it right.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Autonomy automation (FT.com)
Autonomy automation
Autonomy, the search specialist, has unveiled Autonomy ControlPoint, a compliance solution for organisations running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. It is designed to automate the otherwise cumbersome process of searching for documents stored in SharePoint and tagging them to comply with corporate, legal and regulatory standards for document retention. ControlPoint can understand more than 1,000 different file types and can search across all the SharePoint servers and other repositories located on a corporate network.
Autonomy, the search specialist, has unveiled Autonomy ControlPoint, a compliance solution for organisations running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. It is designed to automate the otherwise cumbersome process of searching for documents stored in SharePoint and tagging them to comply with corporate, legal and regulatory standards for document retention. ControlPoint can understand more than 1,000 different file types and can search across all the SharePoint servers and other repositories located on a corporate network.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Microsoft SharePoint macht Enterprise 2.0 geschäftstüchtig
Microsoft SharePoint macht Enterprise 2.0 geschäftstüchtig
Microsoft liefert mit dem Office SharePoint Server 2007 in der Praxis bewährte Technologien für soziale Online-Netzwerke, Blogs, Wikis, Foto- und Video-Portale und andere Web-Dienste, die insbesondere von der Interaktion mit ihren Anwendern leben. Längst fragen sich immer mehr Unternehmen, wie sie Ideen und Anwendungen des Web 2.0 nutzen können, um ihre gesamten Informations- und Kommunikationsprozesse grundlegend zu modernisieren und zu verbessern. Genau diese Frage steht im Mittelpunkt des SharePointCommunityCamps 09.2008. Die Anwenderkonferenz findet in diesem Jahr am 15. und 16. September 2008 im NH-Hotel am Flughafen Stuttgart statt.
Microsoft liefert mit dem Office SharePoint Server 2007 in der Praxis bewährte Technologien für soziale Online-Netzwerke, Blogs, Wikis, Foto- und Video-Portale und andere Web-Dienste, die insbesondere von der Interaktion mit ihren Anwendern leben. Längst fragen sich immer mehr Unternehmen, wie sie Ideen und Anwendungen des Web 2.0 nutzen können, um ihre gesamten Informations- und Kommunikationsprozesse grundlegend zu modernisieren und zu verbessern. Genau diese Frage steht im Mittelpunkt des SharePointCommunityCamps 09.2008. Die Anwenderkonferenz findet in diesem Jahr am 15. und 16. September 2008 im NH-Hotel am Flughafen Stuttgart statt.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Microsoft SharePoint Popularity Comes with Issues
Microsoft's SharePoint Server 2007 may be taking off in the enterprise, but the software doesn't come without holes, warts and a variety of other issues that need to be addressed in any corporate deployment.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
SharePoint in the Enterprise
Where does Microsoft's ECM tool fit within the overall context of an organization's ECM strategy?
May/June 2008
— Russ Edelman
It should not surprise you to hear that Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has proven to be the biggest phenomena in enterprise content management, bar none. While some may argue that it is not fully baked, organizations around the world are aggressively implementing SharePoint 2007 for global projects and doing so with large volumes of content.
The observations in this article come from both first-hand experience and conversations with many people who are affected by SharePoint’s unstoppable growth. Evan Richman, Microsoft’s global ECM product manager for SharePoint, comments, “The popularity of SharePoint has even surprised Microsoft. It is clear that SharePoint represents the first truly collaborative ECM platform and, as such, offers a unique value proposition in the marketplace. Traditional ECM solutions are designed to address specific business needs that impact a small percentage of information assets with a low percentage of the workforce participating. In comparison, SharePoint 2007 has been designed to drive broad information worker participation in ECM. It enables organizations to manage previously unmanaged content, thus maximizing the value of an organization’s information assets while supporting broadening compliance challenges.”
Understandably, Richman’s perspective may be interpreted as one with a slight bit of bias. However, Gartner research vice president Toby Bell reinforces Richman’s comments, “SharePoint has risen to become the top search term across Gartner and is generating huge inquiries from our clients.” Bell added, “What is uniquely different about SharePoint 2007 in comparison to its predecessors and other ECM systems is that the business community has become highly vocal and active in pursuing SharePointbased solutions.”
As an additional point of validation, Doculabs’ ECM industry guru, Jeetu Patel, has had similar experiences as the Doculabs team counsels global organizations with their ECM strategies. Patel added, “Earlier versions of SharePoint were dismissed as departmental solutions. In comparison, SharePoint 2007 is now being incorporated into the fabric of international organizations’ ECM infrastructure. These strategies are being driven by either pure SharePoint-based solutions or co-existence strategies that allow SharePoint and legacy ECM systems to live harmoniously together.”
Two Fundamental Paths with SharePoint 2007
Patel’s comments suggest the two primary paths that are being followed by most organizations regarding SharePoint. The first path is followed by organizations that have no existing ECM systems in place. The second path is traveled by organizations that do employ existing ECM systems. In each case there are distinct advantages and disadvantages that must be recognized and addressed. However, regardless of the path chosen, there are also a number of common issues that must be considered in order to achieve the desired outcome. These are summarized in the table on page 48.
Path 1 – SharePoint Only
Despite every ECM practitioners’ hopes, ECM technologies are still not employed and actively used in most organizations around the world. However, the introduction of SharePoint 2007 has served as a powerful catalyst of awareness for the benefits of ECM and this message has been acknowledged by a much broader community than in the past. In fact, despite the competitive concerns introduced to all of the existing ECM vendors, most would be quick to point out that SharePoint has moved ECM to center stage as a strategic investment.
Given the raised awareness of SharePoint 2007, many companies are now considering or implementing the tool as a first step into the world of ECM. While the move into ECM is applauded, it is important that those organizations have a clear understanding of the challenges as well as the benefits. Beyond the summary in the table, there are a number of important factors that should be taken into account when SharePoint is the only ECM platform deployed.
Strategic Initial Successes – While this point isn’t specific to SharePoint, it is appropriate to highlight as many organizations implement SharePoint in a broad capacity during initial deployment. Such a broad approach creates a higher probability of partial or complete failure. Why? First, SharePoint offers a broad set of capabilities. If the functionality is not clearly understood, users are confused and the value is diminished. Second, SharePoint is very easy to initially install and configure. However, when broader requirements must be considered, more planning is typically necessary to ensure that the system is properly optimized. Third, a strong communications strategy is necessary to ensure that users understand the capabilities; that the project’s success is carefully tracked; and that problems are immediately resolved.
WSS vs. MOSS – Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) is the free version of SharePoint that accompanies every version of Windows Server 2003 and greater. It provides a rich set of capabilities for departments or smaller organizations and, as mentioned above, can be installed and configured with relative ease. In comparison, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) is the paid-for-version of SharePoint and offers a much richer set of capabilities for the enterprise. Consequently, understanding the differences and which platform is right for your organization will become very important. In some cases, organizations have elected to use a hybrid of WSS and MOSS. When this path is chosen, take the time to understand the implications of a joint approach.
Governance and Standards – SharePoint’s popularity, to a large degree, has been driven by business people who were able to immediately stand up the product and begin using it. While this grassroots movement is a clear indication of the product’s popularity and value, it also has the potential to introduce challenges around standardization and governance. When deploying Share- Point, it will be important to solidify a governance and standards strategy and that strategy should be designed to evolve as the use of the product evolves.
3rd Party Product Usage – Despite SharePoint’s extensive capabilities, we are regularly reminded that the product does not solve every problem. By design, Microsoft recognized that it would be able to provide a broad and deep level of functionality; however, it would not be able to incorporate every feature request into the offering. As a result, the voids that were left open have been and continue to be filled by 3rd party vendors. With Share- Point 2007, there is an active community of 3rd party vendors; a benefit for the vendors and their customers. However, careful thought should be given regarding the use of certified partners and the balance of 3rd party products versus customizations. In some cases, organizations would have to rely upon a large number of 3rd party vendors for discreet pieces of functionality. In those cases, companies have trended towards relying upon a smaller number of 3rd party vendors for substantive functionality (imaging, search, co-existence) and then developing a few customizations for the simpler requests. This lessens the dependency upon a larger number of the 3rd party vendors.
Path 2 – Coexistence
Given the readership of this publication, most of you will probably need SharePoint to coexist with an existing system. That said, the issues raised regarding Path 1 remain applicable as you stride down the coexistence path—with a few extra issues. The coexistence path is actually comprised of two intertwined sub-paths. First, there is often a genuine need for SharePoint to exist with the existing ECM systems. Second, some coexistence strategies are temporary in nature with the ultimate goal of migrating some or all existing ECM systems to SharePoint. In either case, there are a collection of considerations that should be anticipated when planning an effective coexistence strategy (the items below are common, but do not comprise an exhaustive list).
“Surfacing” Existing ECM Repositories – The notion of “surfacing” an existing ECM repository in SharePoint has become widely accepted as a common approach for allowing users to retrieve files from the existing ECM system through a SharePoint interface. However, surfacing capabilities will vary considerably depending upon the techniques selected. In some capacities, most or all of the functionality will be made available in a secured fashion from the existing ECM system. In other cases, surfacing is nothing more than a read-only view into the existing ECM system that allows for the display of search results and the file. Of course there are variants between the two extremes.
For example, SeeUnity is dedicated to providing this capability as well as migration tools that allow for content to be migrated from the existing ECM systems into SharePoint. Dan Anderson, co-founder and vice president of SeeUnity comments, “Our dualprong approach has allowed companies to leverage the capabilities of the existing ECM systems without having to rush through the migration. This allows for their clients to control a migration to SharePoint, if that is the desired objective.” With prior versions of SharePoint, existing ECM vendors didn’t pay much attention to a co-existence strategy. However, with SharePoint 2007’s unprecedented success, they quickly saw the writing on the wall and either partnered with companies like SeeUnity or developed their own surfacing solution. Now, many ECM vendors see SharePoint as the front end to their backend and they do so through surfacing.
Functionality Coexistence between SharePoint and Existing ECM Systems – Two factors are impacted by this consideration. First, because SharePoint still has some gaps in its capabilities in comparison to existing ECM products, you must take appropriate steps to address the disparities in functionality. For example, a few ECM systems allow for version level security and SharePoint has a broader security model that allows for security at the major and minor levels. If users have become accustomed to a different security model, you’ll need to ensure that SharePoint security will be sufficient and that there are differences between the two models.
Second, content from either SharePoint or the existing ECM system (or both) often needs to be referenced in the other product’s workflow or some other module. For example, a press release in SharePoint may need to rely upon a workflow within the existing ECM system. To accommodate this the respective products must be integrated to support such requirements. As more of the existing ECM vendors fully recognize the emergence of SharePoint, they are aggressively building these types of integrations. It is also worth noting that one of the common integration points being employed is that of the existing ECM repository being used for records management.
Migrations to SharePoint – As referenced earlier, co-existence typically includes some type of migration of content from the existing ECM system to SharePoint. For those unfamiliar with migrating between ECM systems, be prepared for an experience that is more involved than you might imagine. Factors that need to be considered include the timing and sequencing of the migration, metadata mapping when there are variances between the metadata, and the stratification of content in SharePoint to accommodate site structures as compared to one or a few centralized repositories. This does not take any of the testing and training into account that accompanies migrations.
To wrap up, it will be important to discern fact from fiction as you speak to people about SharePoint 2007. With SharePoint’s popularity, many new people have entered the fray. In general, this is good. However, it also introduces a challenge or two. First, if the only exposure they’ve had to ECM is SharePoint, they may be out of touch with the many nuances and issues associated with a successful ECM project. Part of this problem is that they look at SharePoint as pure infrastructure as compared to a complete ECM solution. Additionally, everyone is claiming to be a SharePoint expert these days; with certifications and without. Make sure you go through a diligent qualification process to understand the extent of their capabilities and to determine if they have development expertise against the SharePoint object model as compared to administration/configuration experience. It makes a difference!
--Russ Edelman(russ.edelman@corridorconsulting.com) is president and CEO of Corridor Consulting (www.corridorconsulting.com ). A frequent speaker and industry expert, Russ is also chair of AIIM’s Emerging Technology Advisory Group.
May/June 2008
— Russ Edelman
It should not surprise you to hear that Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has proven to be the biggest phenomena in enterprise content management, bar none. While some may argue that it is not fully baked, organizations around the world are aggressively implementing SharePoint 2007 for global projects and doing so with large volumes of content.
The observations in this article come from both first-hand experience and conversations with many people who are affected by SharePoint’s unstoppable growth. Evan Richman, Microsoft’s global ECM product manager for SharePoint, comments, “The popularity of SharePoint has even surprised Microsoft. It is clear that SharePoint represents the first truly collaborative ECM platform and, as such, offers a unique value proposition in the marketplace. Traditional ECM solutions are designed to address specific business needs that impact a small percentage of information assets with a low percentage of the workforce participating. In comparison, SharePoint 2007 has been designed to drive broad information worker participation in ECM. It enables organizations to manage previously unmanaged content, thus maximizing the value of an organization’s information assets while supporting broadening compliance challenges.”
Understandably, Richman’s perspective may be interpreted as one with a slight bit of bias. However, Gartner research vice president Toby Bell reinforces Richman’s comments, “SharePoint has risen to become the top search term across Gartner and is generating huge inquiries from our clients.” Bell added, “What is uniquely different about SharePoint 2007 in comparison to its predecessors and other ECM systems is that the business community has become highly vocal and active in pursuing SharePointbased solutions.”
As an additional point of validation, Doculabs’ ECM industry guru, Jeetu Patel, has had similar experiences as the Doculabs team counsels global organizations with their ECM strategies. Patel added, “Earlier versions of SharePoint were dismissed as departmental solutions. In comparison, SharePoint 2007 is now being incorporated into the fabric of international organizations’ ECM infrastructure. These strategies are being driven by either pure SharePoint-based solutions or co-existence strategies that allow SharePoint and legacy ECM systems to live harmoniously together.”
Two Fundamental Paths with SharePoint 2007
Patel’s comments suggest the two primary paths that are being followed by most organizations regarding SharePoint. The first path is followed by organizations that have no existing ECM systems in place. The second path is traveled by organizations that do employ existing ECM systems. In each case there are distinct advantages and disadvantages that must be recognized and addressed. However, regardless of the path chosen, there are also a number of common issues that must be considered in order to achieve the desired outcome. These are summarized in the table on page 48.
Path 1 – SharePoint Only
Despite every ECM practitioners’ hopes, ECM technologies are still not employed and actively used in most organizations around the world. However, the introduction of SharePoint 2007 has served as a powerful catalyst of awareness for the benefits of ECM and this message has been acknowledged by a much broader community than in the past. In fact, despite the competitive concerns introduced to all of the existing ECM vendors, most would be quick to point out that SharePoint has moved ECM to center stage as a strategic investment.
Given the raised awareness of SharePoint 2007, many companies are now considering or implementing the tool as a first step into the world of ECM. While the move into ECM is applauded, it is important that those organizations have a clear understanding of the challenges as well as the benefits. Beyond the summary in the table, there are a number of important factors that should be taken into account when SharePoint is the only ECM platform deployed.
Strategic Initial Successes – While this point isn’t specific to SharePoint, it is appropriate to highlight as many organizations implement SharePoint in a broad capacity during initial deployment. Such a broad approach creates a higher probability of partial or complete failure. Why? First, SharePoint offers a broad set of capabilities. If the functionality is not clearly understood, users are confused and the value is diminished. Second, SharePoint is very easy to initially install and configure. However, when broader requirements must be considered, more planning is typically necessary to ensure that the system is properly optimized. Third, a strong communications strategy is necessary to ensure that users understand the capabilities; that the project’s success is carefully tracked; and that problems are immediately resolved.
WSS vs. MOSS – Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) is the free version of SharePoint that accompanies every version of Windows Server 2003 and greater. It provides a rich set of capabilities for departments or smaller organizations and, as mentioned above, can be installed and configured with relative ease. In comparison, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) is the paid-for-version of SharePoint and offers a much richer set of capabilities for the enterprise. Consequently, understanding the differences and which platform is right for your organization will become very important. In some cases, organizations have elected to use a hybrid of WSS and MOSS. When this path is chosen, take the time to understand the implications of a joint approach.
Governance and Standards – SharePoint’s popularity, to a large degree, has been driven by business people who were able to immediately stand up the product and begin using it. While this grassroots movement is a clear indication of the product’s popularity and value, it also has the potential to introduce challenges around standardization and governance. When deploying Share- Point, it will be important to solidify a governance and standards strategy and that strategy should be designed to evolve as the use of the product evolves.
3rd Party Product Usage – Despite SharePoint’s extensive capabilities, we are regularly reminded that the product does not solve every problem. By design, Microsoft recognized that it would be able to provide a broad and deep level of functionality; however, it would not be able to incorporate every feature request into the offering. As a result, the voids that were left open have been and continue to be filled by 3rd party vendors. With Share- Point 2007, there is an active community of 3rd party vendors; a benefit for the vendors and their customers. However, careful thought should be given regarding the use of certified partners and the balance of 3rd party products versus customizations. In some cases, organizations would have to rely upon a large number of 3rd party vendors for discreet pieces of functionality. In those cases, companies have trended towards relying upon a smaller number of 3rd party vendors for substantive functionality (imaging, search, co-existence) and then developing a few customizations for the simpler requests. This lessens the dependency upon a larger number of the 3rd party vendors.
Path 2 – Coexistence
Given the readership of this publication, most of you will probably need SharePoint to coexist with an existing system. That said, the issues raised regarding Path 1 remain applicable as you stride down the coexistence path—with a few extra issues. The coexistence path is actually comprised of two intertwined sub-paths. First, there is often a genuine need for SharePoint to exist with the existing ECM systems. Second, some coexistence strategies are temporary in nature with the ultimate goal of migrating some or all existing ECM systems to SharePoint. In either case, there are a collection of considerations that should be anticipated when planning an effective coexistence strategy (the items below are common, but do not comprise an exhaustive list).
“Surfacing” Existing ECM Repositories – The notion of “surfacing” an existing ECM repository in SharePoint has become widely accepted as a common approach for allowing users to retrieve files from the existing ECM system through a SharePoint interface. However, surfacing capabilities will vary considerably depending upon the techniques selected. In some capacities, most or all of the functionality will be made available in a secured fashion from the existing ECM system. In other cases, surfacing is nothing more than a read-only view into the existing ECM system that allows for the display of search results and the file. Of course there are variants between the two extremes.
For example, SeeUnity is dedicated to providing this capability as well as migration tools that allow for content to be migrated from the existing ECM systems into SharePoint. Dan Anderson, co-founder and vice president of SeeUnity comments, “Our dualprong approach has allowed companies to leverage the capabilities of the existing ECM systems without having to rush through the migration. This allows for their clients to control a migration to SharePoint, if that is the desired objective.” With prior versions of SharePoint, existing ECM vendors didn’t pay much attention to a co-existence strategy. However, with SharePoint 2007’s unprecedented success, they quickly saw the writing on the wall and either partnered with companies like SeeUnity or developed their own surfacing solution. Now, many ECM vendors see SharePoint as the front end to their backend and they do so through surfacing.
Functionality Coexistence between SharePoint and Existing ECM Systems – Two factors are impacted by this consideration. First, because SharePoint still has some gaps in its capabilities in comparison to existing ECM products, you must take appropriate steps to address the disparities in functionality. For example, a few ECM systems allow for version level security and SharePoint has a broader security model that allows for security at the major and minor levels. If users have become accustomed to a different security model, you’ll need to ensure that SharePoint security will be sufficient and that there are differences between the two models.
Second, content from either SharePoint or the existing ECM system (or both) often needs to be referenced in the other product’s workflow or some other module. For example, a press release in SharePoint may need to rely upon a workflow within the existing ECM system. To accommodate this the respective products must be integrated to support such requirements. As more of the existing ECM vendors fully recognize the emergence of SharePoint, they are aggressively building these types of integrations. It is also worth noting that one of the common integration points being employed is that of the existing ECM repository being used for records management.
Migrations to SharePoint – As referenced earlier, co-existence typically includes some type of migration of content from the existing ECM system to SharePoint. For those unfamiliar with migrating between ECM systems, be prepared for an experience that is more involved than you might imagine. Factors that need to be considered include the timing and sequencing of the migration, metadata mapping when there are variances between the metadata, and the stratification of content in SharePoint to accommodate site structures as compared to one or a few centralized repositories. This does not take any of the testing and training into account that accompanies migrations.
To wrap up, it will be important to discern fact from fiction as you speak to people about SharePoint 2007. With SharePoint’s popularity, many new people have entered the fray. In general, this is good. However, it also introduces a challenge or two. First, if the only exposure they’ve had to ECM is SharePoint, they may be out of touch with the many nuances and issues associated with a successful ECM project. Part of this problem is that they look at SharePoint as pure infrastructure as compared to a complete ECM solution. Additionally, everyone is claiming to be a SharePoint expert these days; with certifications and without. Make sure you go through a diligent qualification process to understand the extent of their capabilities and to determine if they have development expertise against the SharePoint object model as compared to administration/configuration experience. It makes a difference!
--Russ Edelman(russ.edelman@corridorconsulting.com) is president and CEO of Corridor Consulting (www.corridorconsulting.com ). A frequent speaker and industry expert, Russ is also chair of AIIM’s Emerging Technology Advisory Group.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Praxis-Workshop: "Unternehmensprozesse mit SharePoint optimieren"
Die Locatech GmbH setzt am 30.05.2008 mit dem Praxis-Workshop "Optimieren unternehmensweiter Prozesse mit SharePoint" ihre Veranstaltungsreihe fort. Dieser Workshop richtet sich an alle, die für die Organisation von Arbeitsprozessen verantwortlich sind und einer Datenflut aus strukturierten und unstrukturierten Informationen gegenüber stehen. Beispielsweise Geschäftsführer, IT-, Projektleiter oder Leiter aus dem Bereich Organisation werden hier in die Methoden für das Dokumenten- und Informationsmanagement eingeführt.
Ziel ist es, den Teilnehmern zu vermitteln, wie sie auf Basis der Microsoft-SharePoint-Plattform ihren Verwaltungsaufwand auf ein Minimum reduzieren und sich so Zeitfenster für andere Projekte schaffen. Ihnen wird aufgezeigt, für welche typischen Szenarien eine SharePoint-Umgebung sinnvoll eingesetzt werden kann und wie sie Unternehmen wirkungsvoll beim Vereinfachen und Optimieren von Arbeitsabläufen unterstützt. Außerdem wird erläutert, wie mit einfachen Schritten ein eigenes Portal realisiert werden kann, in das Unternehmensdaten, zugehörige Informationen, Dokumente und eine Teamkommunikation integriert werden.
Veranstaltungsort für den aktuellen Workshop ist das Seminargebäude der Industrie- und Handelskammer zu Dortmund, Märkische Straße 120, 44141 Dortmund. Die Workshopgebühr beträgt 95 Euro zzgl. MwSt., Nachlässe werden für Teilnehmer aus dem gleichen Unternehmen gewährt. Anmeldungen sind online möglich unter http://www.locatech.com/index.php?id=106 .
Referent:
Referent dieses Workshops ist Dirk Löhn, der Gründer der Locatech GmbH. Er unterstützt seit über 20 Jahren Unternehmen mit ganzheitlichen Lösungen für das Dokumenten- und Informationsmanagement und verfügt dadurch über tief greifende Erfahrungen mit SharePoint.
Stimme eines Seminarteilnehmers:
"Das Know-how, das ich mir in dem Workshop 'Pflichtenhefterstellung' angeeignet habe, werde ich für unsere internen Projekte gleich anwenden. Der Workshop war sehr gut organisiert. Der Referent hat sein Wissen direkt aus der Praxis vermittelt, wodurch seine Erläuterungen sehr anschaulich und leicht nachvollziehbar waren", meint Mike Therolf, Geschäftsführer der unternehmen online GmbH & Co. KG, der im April einen Locatech-Workshop besucht hat.
13.05.2008, Leif Sonstenes, Locatech GmbH
Ziel ist es, den Teilnehmern zu vermitteln, wie sie auf Basis der Microsoft-SharePoint-Plattform ihren Verwaltungsaufwand auf ein Minimum reduzieren und sich so Zeitfenster für andere Projekte schaffen. Ihnen wird aufgezeigt, für welche typischen Szenarien eine SharePoint-Umgebung sinnvoll eingesetzt werden kann und wie sie Unternehmen wirkungsvoll beim Vereinfachen und Optimieren von Arbeitsabläufen unterstützt. Außerdem wird erläutert, wie mit einfachen Schritten ein eigenes Portal realisiert werden kann, in das Unternehmensdaten, zugehörige Informationen, Dokumente und eine Teamkommunikation integriert werden.
Veranstaltungsort für den aktuellen Workshop ist das Seminargebäude der Industrie- und Handelskammer zu Dortmund, Märkische Straße 120, 44141 Dortmund. Die Workshopgebühr beträgt 95 Euro zzgl. MwSt., Nachlässe werden für Teilnehmer aus dem gleichen Unternehmen gewährt. Anmeldungen sind online möglich unter http://www.locatech.com/index.php?id=106 .
Referent:
Referent dieses Workshops ist Dirk Löhn, der Gründer der Locatech GmbH. Er unterstützt seit über 20 Jahren Unternehmen mit ganzheitlichen Lösungen für das Dokumenten- und Informationsmanagement und verfügt dadurch über tief greifende Erfahrungen mit SharePoint.
Stimme eines Seminarteilnehmers:
"Das Know-how, das ich mir in dem Workshop 'Pflichtenhefterstellung' angeeignet habe, werde ich für unsere internen Projekte gleich anwenden. Der Workshop war sehr gut organisiert. Der Referent hat sein Wissen direkt aus der Praxis vermittelt, wodurch seine Erläuterungen sehr anschaulich und leicht nachvollziehbar waren", meint Mike Therolf, Geschäftsführer der unternehmen online GmbH & Co. KG, der im April einen Locatech-Workshop besucht hat.
13.05.2008, Leif Sonstenes, Locatech GmbH
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
Stony Brook University’s Division of Information Technology recently issued its second edition of DoIT News. It is a newsletter geared towards faculty and staff that is currently being published once a semester. The big news item this spring was the announcement of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) being available on campus. For those who did not see the newsletter, here is the article along with related links. If you are a member of the Stony Brook University community, give SharePoint a try and let us know what you think!
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Now Available
Improved team productivity, tools for collaboration and a means to keep people connected regardless of geographic location are three big reasons to try out Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
Collaboration is a whole lot easier at Stony Brook University. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server technology provides freedom to create and manage Internet sites that allow for document sharing, team collaboration, Web-site authoring, content management and social networking.
To get started using SharePoint all you need is a Web browser (preferably Microsoft’s Internet Explorer) and your Stony Brook NetID.
Research teams, committees and student organizations are the likely groups to benefit from SharePoint. It works seamlessly with Microsoft Office products such as Word, Excel and Access.
My Site is a personal Web portal that allows individuals to create a profile and a personal Web site that can be shared with colleagues.
There is a calendar tool, a place to post announcements, task lists and relevant links. Templates are available for creating blogs and wikis.
SharePoint is a great tool for managing documents. Libraries can be created and multiple authoring is supported. You can be alerted if someone in your team modifies a shared document. A check-in and check-out system can be enabled to ensure that just one person is working on a document at any given time to prevent overwriting. Different versions of a document can be saved and restored.
As a Web site content management system, SharePoint helps you separate the site design from the content authoring. Permissions can be set, giving you control over who has access to your site, a particular page or even a page element. In addition, a feature called audiencing provides a means for filtering specific parts of a page to a targeted audience.
Build your own My Site right now by logging into https://mysite.stonybrook.edu and entering your NetID and NetID password. Your NetID will need to be entered in the following format: sunysb.edu\“Your NetID”.
Additional SharePoint sites can be requested by filling out the form provided at https://web.stonybrook.edu/sharepoint.
Related Links:
http://www.stonybrook.edu/it/sharepoint1.shtml
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA101087481033.aspx
Stony Brook University’s Division of Information Technology recently issued its second edition of DoIT News. It is a newsletter geared towards faculty and staff that is currently being published once a semester. The big news item this spring was the announcement of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) being available on campus. For those who did not see the newsletter, here is the article along with related links. If you are a member of the Stony Brook University community, give SharePoint a try and let us know what you think!
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Now Available
Improved team productivity, tools for collaboration and a means to keep people connected regardless of geographic location are three big reasons to try out Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
Collaboration is a whole lot easier at Stony Brook University. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server technology provides freedom to create and manage Internet sites that allow for document sharing, team collaboration, Web-site authoring, content management and social networking.
To get started using SharePoint all you need is a Web browser (preferably Microsoft’s Internet Explorer) and your Stony Brook NetID.
Research teams, committees and student organizations are the likely groups to benefit from SharePoint. It works seamlessly with Microsoft Office products such as Word, Excel and Access.
My Site is a personal Web portal that allows individuals to create a profile and a personal Web site that can be shared with colleagues.
There is a calendar tool, a place to post announcements, task lists and relevant links. Templates are available for creating blogs and wikis.
SharePoint is a great tool for managing documents. Libraries can be created and multiple authoring is supported. You can be alerted if someone in your team modifies a shared document. A check-in and check-out system can be enabled to ensure that just one person is working on a document at any given time to prevent overwriting. Different versions of a document can be saved and restored.
As a Web site content management system, SharePoint helps you separate the site design from the content authoring. Permissions can be set, giving you control over who has access to your site, a particular page or even a page element. In addition, a feature called audiencing provides a means for filtering specific parts of a page to a targeted audience.
Build your own My Site right now by logging into https://mysite.stonybrook.edu and entering your NetID and NetID password. Your NetID will need to be entered in the following format: sunysb.edu\“Your NetID”.
Additional SharePoint sites can be requested by filling out the form provided at https://web.stonybrook.edu/sharepoint.
Related Links:
http://www.stonybrook.edu/it/sharepoint1.shtml
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA101087481033.aspx
Monday, March 31, 2008
Learning to use SharePoint – could this be like learning to snowboard?
After a week of fantastic spring break skiing at Whistler in British Columbia, I returned to work and was reminded that training alone is not enough to help users successfully build their own SharePoint collaboration sites. It’s a bit like my friend Drew describes learning to snowboard, which he says is “easy to learn but difficult to master.” I’m now convinced that SharePoint has this same characteristic – easy to learn but very difficult to master. Why? ...
...Because most organizations end up with just enough time to train users on the basic features and functions of the tool, not on information architecture and design best practices so that they can optimally build sites. You know, the kind where people can actually find information instead of having it buried in the same useless folder hierarchy that existed on the file shares SharePoint is replacing. Training in the “how to” functions in MOSS 2007 is not enough – site builders, who in many organizations are not going to be IT folks but rather “regular” end users, also need to understand information design best practices.
Here are just a few concepts that can improve the end-user designed sites I have reviewed:
- Tab Navigation: Sub-sites can be more easily organized and visible by leveraging the out of the box tab navigation that comes with SharePoint. On one end user-designed site I reviewed recently, the site designer had multiple sub-sites but they were only visible in the left hand navigation, which, due to a lengthy list of libraries, etc., required a lot of vertical scrolling to find. Grouping the sites on meaningful tabs (and sub-tabs) would have created a much more usable site.
- Consistent Use of Metadata: In a series of sites in the same site collection (designed for the same group of end users), metadata should be consistently applied. On this same site, some document libraries used a field called Keywords to categorize documents and others used a more functional term to categorize documents using the exact same values. All libraries should have used the functional term.
- Limited Use of Folders: I’ve mentioned this in earlier posts, but folders are not the only way or often not the best way to organize information in a document library. On many sites that I’ve reviewed in the past, I’ve seen folders with no documents, folders with one document, and folder hierarchies that are impossible to decipher (often, even for the original designer!). SharePoint training really must include best practices for content organization or we’re going to have SharePoint sites that are as difficult to understand and navigate as the file shares they are designed to replace.
- Consistent Page Layouts: One of my clients described navigating the SharePoint sites in her organization as an “adventure.” Every site uses a different structure – for example, some sites have Announcements web parts in the upper left, some in the upper right, some show 10 items and take up way too much screen real estate and some show just the 3 to 5 most recent items. I shudder to think about how an external partner who works with multiple groups in this organization will react when it seems like they are working with 10 companies, not one! Just because you CAN change the organization of the web parts on your site around doesn’t mean you should! Organizations need to build a collection of templates that work for their business and encourage users with design privileges to understand the value of the templates for their end users – creating a balance between “creativity and productivity,” with an emphasis on the latter.
SharePoint is a fantastic end user tool. The “no code” capabilities are a great way to empower end users to create their own collaboration sites, without requiring IT intervention. But, IT can’t just provide basic skills training in the features of SharePoint without also helping site designers learn to master the best practices of site design. Drew tells me that any downhill skier can probably learn to snowboard almost as well as they ski but they have to really devote 3-5 solid days to master the techniques enough to fully enjoy the experience. They clearly can’t be an expert in 3-5 days, but they can certainly have more than just the basics. I think that’s how we have to look at SharePoint training – all site builders need to learn the basic skills first, but then they absolutely have to dedicate enough time to learn the best practices for site design and information architectures or their sites will just not be usable.
...Because most organizations end up with just enough time to train users on the basic features and functions of the tool, not on information architecture and design best practices so that they can optimally build sites. You know, the kind where people can actually find information instead of having it buried in the same useless folder hierarchy that existed on the file shares SharePoint is replacing. Training in the “how to” functions in MOSS 2007 is not enough – site builders, who in many organizations are not going to be IT folks but rather “regular” end users, also need to understand information design best practices.
Here are just a few concepts that can improve the end-user designed sites I have reviewed:
- Tab Navigation: Sub-sites can be more easily organized and visible by leveraging the out of the box tab navigation that comes with SharePoint. On one end user-designed site I reviewed recently, the site designer had multiple sub-sites but they were only visible in the left hand navigation, which, due to a lengthy list of libraries, etc., required a lot of vertical scrolling to find. Grouping the sites on meaningful tabs (and sub-tabs) would have created a much more usable site.
- Consistent Use of Metadata: In a series of sites in the same site collection (designed for the same group of end users), metadata should be consistently applied. On this same site, some document libraries used a field called Keywords to categorize documents and others used a more functional term to categorize documents using the exact same values. All libraries should have used the functional term.
- Limited Use of Folders: I’ve mentioned this in earlier posts, but folders are not the only way or often not the best way to organize information in a document library. On many sites that I’ve reviewed in the past, I’ve seen folders with no documents, folders with one document, and folder hierarchies that are impossible to decipher (often, even for the original designer!). SharePoint training really must include best practices for content organization or we’re going to have SharePoint sites that are as difficult to understand and navigate as the file shares they are designed to replace.
- Consistent Page Layouts: One of my clients described navigating the SharePoint sites in her organization as an “adventure.” Every site uses a different structure – for example, some sites have Announcements web parts in the upper left, some in the upper right, some show 10 items and take up way too much screen real estate and some show just the 3 to 5 most recent items. I shudder to think about how an external partner who works with multiple groups in this organization will react when it seems like they are working with 10 companies, not one! Just because you CAN change the organization of the web parts on your site around doesn’t mean you should! Organizations need to build a collection of templates that work for their business and encourage users with design privileges to understand the value of the templates for their end users – creating a balance between “creativity and productivity,” with an emphasis on the latter.
SharePoint is a fantastic end user tool. The “no code” capabilities are a great way to empower end users to create their own collaboration sites, without requiring IT intervention. But, IT can’t just provide basic skills training in the features of SharePoint without also helping site designers learn to master the best practices of site design. Drew tells me that any downhill skier can probably learn to snowboard almost as well as they ski but they have to really devote 3-5 solid days to master the techniques enough to fully enjoy the experience. They clearly can’t be an expert in 3-5 days, but they can certainly have more than just the basics. I think that’s how we have to look at SharePoint training – all site builders need to learn the basic skills first, but then they absolutely have to dedicate enough time to learn the best practices for site design and information architectures or their sites will just not be usable.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Microsoft SharePoint taking business by storm
Versatile Microsoft server may not be perfect, but it is attracting interest as tool to address anything from collaboration to process management
Microsoft's SharePoint Server is on a billion dollar juggernaut to potentially become the next must-have technology, offering companies tools for building everything from collaborative applications to Internet sites and potentially handing Microsoft its next cash cow.
I have not seen anything like this since the early days of [Lotus] Notes," says Mike Gotta, an analyst with the Burton Group. In those days, corporate users were enamored with a shiny new technology that seemed to have infinite uses. "The talk [around SharePoint] is getting strategic now and people are talking about it as a middleware decision," Gotta says.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 is the fastest growing product in the company's history and seems to have as many uses as a Swiss Army knife. Its six focus areas are collaboration, portal, search, enterprise content management (ECM), business process management and business intelligence.(Compare collaboration products.)
Just last month, Microsoft added a hosted alternative to fuel adoption. There is a "perfect storm," observers say, around SharePoint in terms of the popularity of Web-based computing, demand for less-expensive ECM and portal tools, collaboration technology and integration around Microsoft's Office suite.
The attention is a wake up call for competitors, especially IBM/Lotus, as SharePoint could pull customers to other Microsoft software because it is closely integrated with Microsoft's unified communications stack, its e-mail server, Office and Office applications including back-end file sharing repositories for Excel, Word and PowerPoint.
SharePoint was first introduced in 2001 to less than lukewarm reviews as SharePoint Portal Server. In 2003, a stripped down version was offered for free as part of Windows Server 2003 R2, which made it easy for users to test drive the software and soon end-user created team worksites began popping up all over corporate networks.
In 2008, SharePoint has evolved into the prototypical Microsoft tool – good enough for small-to-midsize businesses, adaptable to large enterprises, and, most important, plenty of financial opportunities for third-party independent software vendors and systems integrators.
Partners involved in everything from directory management to archiving to single sign-on are reporting that SharePoint is improving their own revenue.
In March, Bill Gates, Microsoft's chief software architect, said SharePoint had passed 100 million licenses sold, had attracted 17,000 user companies, and eclipsed $1 billion in sales for his company.
Many critics dispute the licensing number but not the message that SharePoint is on fire.
SharePoint, however, isn't without issues that users should consider, including the fact that it does not scale well given the way it stores data in SQL Server, a concern Microsoft is working to answer in the next version likely to ship in 2009.
Or that its social networking tools are considered rudimentary, that SharePoint's portal capabilities still don't measure up to enterprise-class platforms and that the server takes customizations to make it truly sing.
"I think there is going to be some buyer's remorse," Gotta says.
SharePoint does many things, but scaling is not one of them. SharePoint stores everything in SQL Server in what amounts to one universal table, which leads to lots of on-the-wire traffic and a Microsoft recommendation of only 2,000 items per list. By contrast, IBM WebSphere permits hundreds of millions of items per list.
The social networking tools are uninspiring and Microsoft is partnering with NewsGator (feed reader) and Atlassian (wiki) to cover bases, which will lead to inevitable feature clashes as SharePoint evolves.
"Compared to what is out there today, Microsoft's Web 2.0 tools look old and very static and are clunky and difficult to use," says Oliver Young, an analyst with Forrester.
But Young says those limitations and others are speed bumps not show-stoppers.
"I'm not sure I've seen anything that has taken off this big, this quickly. SharePoint 2007 has just blown up," he says.
Late last year, an IDC survey of 300 users found 61% were deploying SharePoint enterprise-wide, and that 28% of those using SharePoint in departments now are expected to expand usage to the enterprise within the next 12 months.
Current users can attest to that transition saying they have persevered from SharePoint's early days to what is now a tactical platform.
In 2006, Brad Marshall, corporate IT director for Bowen Family Homes in Duluth, Ga., backed into SharePoint as part of a hosting deal centered on Microsoft Exchange. Marshall did not like what he had originally seen in Windows SharePoint Services, which offered team workspaces and file sharing for free as part of Windows Server 2003.
But having SharePoint Portal 2003 hosted eliminated some technological limitations and development chores and eventually resulted in a business process workflow application for selling homes that cut up to two days the time it took to do the same process using the old paper-based system.
"We have it down today where in a push we could get it done in less than an hour," Marshall says. The company has built eight to 10 applications on SharePoint, including vacation and performance-review programs.
But Marshall says customizing SharePoint is mandatory and he has used tools from CorasWorks to make that easier.
"If it was just regular, out-of-the-box SharePoint we might not be using it today to be honest," he says.
What's also becoming important are add-ons from partners.
"One of the things we find is people bought SharePoint and they have not figured out the power that is there," says Brian Kellner, vice president of product development for NewsGator. "We help make that more obvious and simple."
Others are building on features that users will need when they begin to harvest that power, such as Symantec with its archiving system, Enterprise Vault.
"In the last year IT has become more aware and more concerned in having a managed approach to SharePoint," says Dave Scott, group product manager for Symantec.
Microsoft for its part compares the popularity of SharePoint with an application that has helped define its success.
"We see tremendous momentum just like Office in the early days when people said this is a new way to work," says Tom Rizzo, director of SharePoint. Consulting firm Accenture has built a Facebook-like SharePoint application to find experts, Ford Motor Co. uses SharePoint for its dealer portal, and the Marines have deployed collaborative applications to aid their efforts in Iraq.
Rizzo says SharePoint has so many entry points for users that Microsoft calls it a business productivity server. He says the next version will show investments in social computing and new features he would not disclose.
"The beauty of SharePoint is that it hits a number of sweet spots," Rizzo says.
It also hits competitors between the eyes.
"I think the most interesting trend to watch for this year and next is how IBM/Lotus reacts to this SharePoint phenomenon," says Harry Wong, CEO and founder of Casahl Technology, which has been helping users migrate either to or from Microsoft and Lotus messaging platforms for years.
Wong says SharePoint is proving to be a powerful leading punch for Microsoft to sell IBM/Lotus users on migration to Exchange and Microsoft's entire slate of collaboration tools.
IBM/Lotus is countering with a similar product called Quickr, and just like Microsoft with Windows SharePoint Services, is giving users a free version to get started.
To be successful, Wong says Lotus has to sell customers on Quickr vs. SharePoint; on Lotus Notes 8 and its Outlook-like interface and integration with Lotus Sametime and Connections; and convince bigger Domino shops the J2EE version of Quickr will provide the scale that SharePoint lacks
"IBM/Lotus has the weapons to defend against Microsoft SharePoint if IBM/Lotus acts quickly and aggressively," he says.
As the battle emerges, it might begin to look like the messaging wars the two fought in the 1990s, but given the breadth of the technology the prize could be much bigger.
Microsoft's SharePoint Server is on a billion dollar juggernaut to potentially become the next must-have technology, offering companies tools for building everything from collaborative applications to Internet sites and potentially handing Microsoft its next cash cow.
I have not seen anything like this since the early days of [Lotus] Notes," says Mike Gotta, an analyst with the Burton Group. In those days, corporate users were enamored with a shiny new technology that seemed to have infinite uses. "The talk [around SharePoint] is getting strategic now and people are talking about it as a middleware decision," Gotta says.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 is the fastest growing product in the company's history and seems to have as many uses as a Swiss Army knife. Its six focus areas are collaboration, portal, search, enterprise content management (ECM), business process management and business intelligence.(Compare collaboration products.)
Just last month, Microsoft added a hosted alternative to fuel adoption. There is a "perfect storm," observers say, around SharePoint in terms of the popularity of Web-based computing, demand for less-expensive ECM and portal tools, collaboration technology and integration around Microsoft's Office suite.
The attention is a wake up call for competitors, especially IBM/Lotus, as SharePoint could pull customers to other Microsoft software because it is closely integrated with Microsoft's unified communications stack, its e-mail server, Office and Office applications including back-end file sharing repositories for Excel, Word and PowerPoint.
SharePoint was first introduced in 2001 to less than lukewarm reviews as SharePoint Portal Server. In 2003, a stripped down version was offered for free as part of Windows Server 2003 R2, which made it easy for users to test drive the software and soon end-user created team worksites began popping up all over corporate networks.
In 2008, SharePoint has evolved into the prototypical Microsoft tool – good enough for small-to-midsize businesses, adaptable to large enterprises, and, most important, plenty of financial opportunities for third-party independent software vendors and systems integrators.
Partners involved in everything from directory management to archiving to single sign-on are reporting that SharePoint is improving their own revenue.
In March, Bill Gates, Microsoft's chief software architect, said SharePoint had passed 100 million licenses sold, had attracted 17,000 user companies, and eclipsed $1 billion in sales for his company.
Many critics dispute the licensing number but not the message that SharePoint is on fire.
SharePoint, however, isn't without issues that users should consider, including the fact that it does not scale well given the way it stores data in SQL Server, a concern Microsoft is working to answer in the next version likely to ship in 2009.
Or that its social networking tools are considered rudimentary, that SharePoint's portal capabilities still don't measure up to enterprise-class platforms and that the server takes customizations to make it truly sing.
"I think there is going to be some buyer's remorse," Gotta says.
SharePoint does many things, but scaling is not one of them. SharePoint stores everything in SQL Server in what amounts to one universal table, which leads to lots of on-the-wire traffic and a Microsoft recommendation of only 2,000 items per list. By contrast, IBM WebSphere permits hundreds of millions of items per list.
The social networking tools are uninspiring and Microsoft is partnering with NewsGator (feed reader) and Atlassian (wiki) to cover bases, which will lead to inevitable feature clashes as SharePoint evolves.
"Compared to what is out there today, Microsoft's Web 2.0 tools look old and very static and are clunky and difficult to use," says Oliver Young, an analyst with Forrester.
But Young says those limitations and others are speed bumps not show-stoppers.
"I'm not sure I've seen anything that has taken off this big, this quickly. SharePoint 2007 has just blown up," he says.
Late last year, an IDC survey of 300 users found 61% were deploying SharePoint enterprise-wide, and that 28% of those using SharePoint in departments now are expected to expand usage to the enterprise within the next 12 months.
Current users can attest to that transition saying they have persevered from SharePoint's early days to what is now a tactical platform.
In 2006, Brad Marshall, corporate IT director for Bowen Family Homes in Duluth, Ga., backed into SharePoint as part of a hosting deal centered on Microsoft Exchange. Marshall did not like what he had originally seen in Windows SharePoint Services, which offered team workspaces and file sharing for free as part of Windows Server 2003.
But having SharePoint Portal 2003 hosted eliminated some technological limitations and development chores and eventually resulted in a business process workflow application for selling homes that cut up to two days the time it took to do the same process using the old paper-based system.
"We have it down today where in a push we could get it done in less than an hour," Marshall says. The company has built eight to 10 applications on SharePoint, including vacation and performance-review programs.
But Marshall says customizing SharePoint is mandatory and he has used tools from CorasWorks to make that easier.
"If it was just regular, out-of-the-box SharePoint we might not be using it today to be honest," he says.
What's also becoming important are add-ons from partners.
"One of the things we find is people bought SharePoint and they have not figured out the power that is there," says Brian Kellner, vice president of product development for NewsGator. "We help make that more obvious and simple."
Others are building on features that users will need when they begin to harvest that power, such as Symantec with its archiving system, Enterprise Vault.
"In the last year IT has become more aware and more concerned in having a managed approach to SharePoint," says Dave Scott, group product manager for Symantec.
Microsoft for its part compares the popularity of SharePoint with an application that has helped define its success.
"We see tremendous momentum just like Office in the early days when people said this is a new way to work," says Tom Rizzo, director of SharePoint. Consulting firm Accenture has built a Facebook-like SharePoint application to find experts, Ford Motor Co. uses SharePoint for its dealer portal, and the Marines have deployed collaborative applications to aid their efforts in Iraq.
Rizzo says SharePoint has so many entry points for users that Microsoft calls it a business productivity server. He says the next version will show investments in social computing and new features he would not disclose.
"The beauty of SharePoint is that it hits a number of sweet spots," Rizzo says.
It also hits competitors between the eyes.
"I think the most interesting trend to watch for this year and next is how IBM/Lotus reacts to this SharePoint phenomenon," says Harry Wong, CEO and founder of Casahl Technology, which has been helping users migrate either to or from Microsoft and Lotus messaging platforms for years.
Wong says SharePoint is proving to be a powerful leading punch for Microsoft to sell IBM/Lotus users on migration to Exchange and Microsoft's entire slate of collaboration tools.
IBM/Lotus is countering with a similar product called Quickr, and just like Microsoft with Windows SharePoint Services, is giving users a free version to get started.
To be successful, Wong says Lotus has to sell customers on Quickr vs. SharePoint; on Lotus Notes 8 and its Outlook-like interface and integration with Lotus Sametime and Connections; and convince bigger Domino shops the J2EE version of Quickr will provide the scale that SharePoint lacks
"IBM/Lotus has the weapons to defend against Microsoft SharePoint if IBM/Lotus acts quickly and aggressively," he says.
As the battle emerges, it might begin to look like the messaging wars the two fought in the 1990s, but given the breadth of the technology the prize could be much bigger.
Microsoft Sharepoint wird strategische Plattform und bedrängt IBM - Produkte + Technik - Software - computerwoche.de
Microsoft Sharepoint wird strategische Plattform und bedrängt IBM - Produkte + Technik - Software - computerwoche.de
Microsoft Sharepoint wird strategische Plattform und bedrängt IBM
Seite 1 von 628.03.2008
Mit "Sharepoint Server" liefert Microsoft Unternehmen ein Werkzeug für viele Zwecke, vom Erzeugen kollaborativer Applikationen bis zum Bau von Internet-Sites. Das Produkt dümpelte lange Zeit vor sich hin, könnte sich aber zu einer der wichtigsten Lösungen des Konzerns entwickeln.
Zwar ist Sharepoint nicht neu, doch erst mit der Version 2007 scheint das Produkt so richtig abzuheben. "Ich habe nichts Vergleichbares gesehen, seitdem Lotus Notes auf den Markt gekommen ist", so Mike Gotta, Analyst beim Beratungs- und Marktforschungsunternehmen Burton Group gegenüber der amerikanischen CW-Schwesterzeitschrift "Network World". Als das heutige IBM-Produkt vor vielen Jahren auf den Markt kam, schienen die Möglichkeiten der neuen Technik grenzenlos. Geht es nach dem Analysten, dann zeigen sich Firmen heute vom Microsoft-System begeistert: "Unternehmen messen Sharepoint eine strategische Bedeutung bei und nehmen das Produkt als Middleware wahr", so der Analyst weiter.
Microsoft Sharepoint wird strategische Plattform und bedrängt IBM
Seite 1 von 628.03.2008
Mit "Sharepoint Server" liefert Microsoft Unternehmen ein Werkzeug für viele Zwecke, vom Erzeugen kollaborativer Applikationen bis zum Bau von Internet-Sites. Das Produkt dümpelte lange Zeit vor sich hin, könnte sich aber zu einer der wichtigsten Lösungen des Konzerns entwickeln.
Zwar ist Sharepoint nicht neu, doch erst mit der Version 2007 scheint das Produkt so richtig abzuheben. "Ich habe nichts Vergleichbares gesehen, seitdem Lotus Notes auf den Markt gekommen ist", so Mike Gotta, Analyst beim Beratungs- und Marktforschungsunternehmen Burton Group gegenüber der amerikanischen CW-Schwesterzeitschrift "Network World". Als das heutige IBM-Produkt vor vielen Jahren auf den Markt kam, schienen die Möglichkeiten der neuen Technik grenzenlos. Geht es nach dem Analysten, dann zeigen sich Firmen heute vom Microsoft-System begeistert: "Unternehmen messen Sharepoint eine strategische Bedeutung bei und nehmen das Produkt als Middleware wahr", so der Analyst weiter.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
ECM-Anbieter tummeln sich im Sharepoint-Umfeld
ECM-Anbieter tummeln sich im Sharepoint-Umfeld
Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2007, kurz MOSS, ist die neue Version der Portal-Software aus dem Hause Microsoft, die im Vergleich zur Vorgängerversion, die noch unter dem Namen Sharepoint Portal Server lief, erhebliche Fortschritte gemacht hat. Auf Grund der massiven Weiterentwicklung positioniert Microsoft selber den MOSS jetzt als ECM-Plattform.
Nimmt man die Definition zu ECM von AIIM, so stellt man fest, dass der derzeitige MOSS mit den Hauptkomponenten Capture, Output, Delivery, Store und Preserve nichts zu tun hat. Bei den Managementkomponenten deckt er die Bereiche Dokumenten-Management, Records-Management, Web-Content-Management sowie schwerpunktmäßig Collaboration ab.
Der Einsatz von Sharepoint-Lösungen scheint sich auszubreiten, es ist eine deutliche Zunahme der Nachfrage im Markt zu spüren, obwohl die Microsoft Lösung bekanntlich einige Lücken aufweist. Gleichzeitig haben immer mehr ECM-Hersteller Produkte im Angebot, die diese Lücken, zumindest im Bereich der Archivierung, zu schließen versuchen. Dieser Artikel versucht einen Überblick über vorhandene Lösungen, offene Punkte und weitere Möglichkeiten der Integration mit Sharepoint zu geben.
Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2007, kurz MOSS, ist die neue Version der Portal-Software aus dem Hause Microsoft, die im Vergleich zur Vorgängerversion, die noch unter dem Namen Sharepoint Portal Server lief, erhebliche Fortschritte gemacht hat. Auf Grund der massiven Weiterentwicklung positioniert Microsoft selber den MOSS jetzt als ECM-Plattform.
Nimmt man die Definition zu ECM von AIIM, so stellt man fest, dass der derzeitige MOSS mit den Hauptkomponenten Capture, Output, Delivery, Store und Preserve nichts zu tun hat. Bei den Managementkomponenten deckt er die Bereiche Dokumenten-Management, Records-Management, Web-Content-Management sowie schwerpunktmäßig Collaboration ab.
Der Einsatz von Sharepoint-Lösungen scheint sich auszubreiten, es ist eine deutliche Zunahme der Nachfrage im Markt zu spüren, obwohl die Microsoft Lösung bekanntlich einige Lücken aufweist. Gleichzeitig haben immer mehr ECM-Hersteller Produkte im Angebot, die diese Lücken, zumindest im Bereich der Archivierung, zu schließen versuchen. Dieser Artikel versucht einen Überblick über vorhandene Lösungen, offene Punkte und weitere Möglichkeiten der Integration mit Sharepoint zu geben.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
MOSS 2007: Microsofts dritter Anlauf sorgt für Aufmerksamkeit
MOSS 2007: Microsofts dritter Anlauf sorgt für Aufmerksamkeit
Microsoft setzt mit dem Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 auf Synergie-Effekte mit Produkten aus dem eigenen Hause. Beim Funktionsumfang wurde stark zugelegt. Wichtige Lücken der Vorgängerversion, z. B. in den Bereichen elektronisches Dokumenten-Management (EDM), Workflow und Web Content Management wurden geschlossen. Zwei wesentliche Schwachpunkte im Bereich der Verwaltung von elektronischen Dokumenten wurden beseitigt, indem eine rollenbasierte Rechteverwaltung für Dokumentenbibliotheken, Ordner und einzelne Dokumente implementiert wurde und indem mit MOSS 2007 nun Inhaltstypen (oft auch als Content Types oder Dokumententypen bezeichnet) eingeführt wurden, die eine einfache Erfassung der Metadaten zu Dokumenten ermöglichen.
Microsoft setzt mit dem Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 auf Synergie-Effekte mit Produkten aus dem eigenen Hause. Beim Funktionsumfang wurde stark zugelegt. Wichtige Lücken der Vorgängerversion, z. B. in den Bereichen elektronisches Dokumenten-Management (EDM), Workflow und Web Content Management wurden geschlossen. Zwei wesentliche Schwachpunkte im Bereich der Verwaltung von elektronischen Dokumenten wurden beseitigt, indem eine rollenbasierte Rechteverwaltung für Dokumentenbibliotheken, Ordner und einzelne Dokumente implementiert wurde und indem mit MOSS 2007 nun Inhaltstypen (oft auch als Content Types oder Dokumententypen bezeichnet) eingeführt wurden, die eine einfache Erfassung der Metadaten zu Dokumenten ermöglichen.
ECM mit dem SharePoint Server 2007
ECM mit dem SharePoint Server 2007
Interview mit Darius Mahmoudi, Senior Solutions Sales Professional der Microsoft Deutschland GmbH. Mit freundlicher Unterstützung des DOK.magazin.
Interview mit Darius Mahmoudi, Senior Solutions Sales Professional der Microsoft Deutschland GmbH. Mit freundlicher Unterstützung des DOK.magazin.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Microsoft's SharePoint Technologies: What to Expect in 2007
Microsoft's SharePoint Technologies: What to Expect in 2007
The upcoming Office 2007 release contains an unprecedented number of server-side components, including newly Office-branded SharePoint tools that support high-performance workplace domains, such as portals, content management and collaboration. In addition to building enterprise SharePoint applications, planners also need to deal with the many ad hoc SharePoint instances that exist "under the radar." These can be a nuisance or they can be a useful part of an overall information ecosystem. Find out what's new, how SharePoint interacts with Microsoft and other applications, how to take advantage of SharePoint ubiquity and what it all will cost.
The upcoming Office 2007 release contains an unprecedented number of server-side components, including newly Office-branded SharePoint tools that support high-performance workplace domains, such as portals, content management and collaboration. In addition to building enterprise SharePoint applications, planners also need to deal with the many ad hoc SharePoint instances that exist "under the radar." These can be a nuisance or they can be a useful part of an overall information ecosystem. Find out what's new, how SharePoint interacts with Microsoft and other applications, how to take advantage of SharePoint ubiquity and what it all will cost.
Monday, March 26, 2007
SharePoint et MOSS au Quotidien Blog d'EROL: Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007
SharePoint et MOSS au Quotidien Blog d'EROL: Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007
Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007 Updated: March 15, 2007
Some of the content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library is available in downloadable and printable form as Microsoft Office Word documents (.doc files).
The content in these 4 books is a copy of selected content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84739) as of the date listed for each book.
The 4 books for WSSv3 are here :
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/WSS/en/library/decec839-73d9-4e23-b167-11e05dfc2feb1033.mspx?mfr=true
Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007 Updated: March 15, 2007
Some of the content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library is available in downloadable and printable form as Microsoft Office Word documents (.doc files).
The content in these 4 books is a copy of selected content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84739) as of the date listed for each book.
The 4 books for WSSv3 are here :
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/WSS/en/library/decec839-73d9-4e23-b167-11e05dfc2feb1033.mspx?mfr=true
Friday, March 02, 2007
Forrester Research: Microsoft's 2007 Enterprise Content Management Platform
Forrester Research: Microsoft's 2007 Enterprise Content Management Platform
March 2, 2007
Microsoft's 2007 Enterprise Content Management Platform
What Information And Knowledge Management Professionals Should Know
Microsoft's enterprise content management (ECM) support in Office SharePoint Server 2007 represents the vendor's formal entry as an ECM platform provider. No longer focused solely on document collaboration, SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single environment for collaborative document management, Web content management, records management, workflow, and eForms support. But Microsoft is not a single source provider for all ECM needs. Information and knowledge management professionals should look at Microsoft Office as a platform for their business content initiatives and be patient while Microsoft matures its ECM capabilities to meet enterprise needs.
March 2, 2007
Microsoft's 2007 Enterprise Content Management Platform
What Information And Knowledge Management Professionals Should Know
Microsoft's enterprise content management (ECM) support in Office SharePoint Server 2007 represents the vendor's formal entry as an ECM platform provider. No longer focused solely on document collaboration, SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single environment for collaborative document management, Web content management, records management, workflow, and eForms support. But Microsoft is not a single source provider for all ECM needs. Information and knowledge management professionals should look at Microsoft Office as a platform for their business content initiatives and be patient while Microsoft matures its ECM capabilities to meet enterprise needs.
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