Social media and intranet case studies, best practices, & evolution by Toby Ward.
View Article  SharePoint for ECM: 5 big enhancements

(LAS VEGAS) Lest you be tingling with excitement about the potential enhancements to your less than spectacular content management system, there are two realities for SharePoint 2010: what is promised, and what is hoped for.

 

Those working with MOSS 2007 can be forgiven for the vacuous deflating sound from their proverbial balloons – those familiar with 2007 promises that don’t materialize as promised (e.g. People Search); others attending the annual SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas can be forgiven for their rapid inhalation of hot air as there is great reason to be optimistic, even excited.

 

Nonetheless, I’ve been both impressed and underwhelmed with what I’ve seen, but more time is needed for Microsoft to complete the beta testing and final refinements before 2010 ships to customers in the spring of 2010. When I asked SharePoint chief Tom Rizzo to explain how he thought the content management functionality compared with other market leaders, Rizzo – speaking as a proud, if not slightly defensive father – instead turned the question back on me: “I challenge all of the other vendors to offer as comprehensive a platform as SharePoint – nothing comes close.” Touché!

 

Here are five of the biggest impact, promised improvements to enterprise content management (ECM) that I’ve seen with my own two eyes, and even used (albeit with mixed success as the ‘lab’ demos are not all working as promised, and a demo is in fact just a demo):

 

1-     Publishing platform – the entire publishing platform is, in essence, a wiki. You can choose to lock down wiki or public authoring rights, extend them to some, or extend them to all. However, it is possible to create sites as wikis. The wikis come with complete version control, history and permissions, and the rich editor or “ribbon” functionality (as seen in Word 200).

2-    Web content management (WCM) – communications professionals rejoice: publishing news and other static content just got a lot easier. The new publishing includes the new “ribbon” user tool that opens when you click on a page or a document, or you simply hit the edit button at the top of a page. Instead of opening a content ‘template’ the new publishing features in-context editing: click on whatever piece of content you want to “edit”, and edit right there on the page (just as you would a wiki). New image tools allow for better control and manipulation of photos, and you no longer have to make the extra step of uploading a photo to a document library before you input it into the page – you can now pull images right from your hard drive, or a website URL.

3-    Records management (RM) – Microsoft has invested a lot of money in improving RM in 2010. Among the many features that have impressed, users or administrators (or someone else that has permission to do so) are able to lock down a document in a document library, as a record. And with a right click, can send that document to a Record Center with confirmation. Additional Life Cycle controls have been added.

4-    Digital asset management (DAM) – yes, SP 2010 actually includes DAM – you no longer have to use a third-party option to professionally manage images, video and other multimedia.

5-   Taxonomy & meta data – perhaps the single, most impressive upgrade or enhancement to SharePoint is the addition of true taxonomy and meta data  controls. All content now comes with a Managed Meta Data Service Term set that can be inherited from the global taxonomy (site collection), can be built upon or controlled by an administrator, or open to all users (or a combination). In other words, when content is created, be it a page, document, wiki, meta data can be added on the spot, as determined by the publisher or limited to a pre-determined set or tree of terms that is locked down. End readers and users can ‘tag’ the content as well with term tags, ratings (1-5 starts) and “I like it.” What is most encouraging about the use of meta data is that it can be “forced” or a “mandatory field” for all content (we all know that most organizations have options to input meta tags on content, but most content authors ignore it if given the choice).

 

Other taxonomy features:

·        Term ‘nesting” or “threading”(think of the tree with parent & children categories)

·         “Fill-in” choices as an option in locked-down taxonomies

·        Different taxonomies at different levels: site collections, sites, libraries, etc.

·         Managed meta data service can be consumed by multiple farms

·        Multilingual taxonomy support (taxonomies using multiple languages)

·         Taxonomy workflow (invite specific people to contribute or review the taxonomy)

·         View and filter documents by term:

o              Geography

o              Product Category

o              Vertical Industry

o              Content Type

o             Deal Size

o            Folders

o              Etc.

 

While not all of these promised improvements were working in the hands-on labs in my time spent using MOSS 2010, this is in-fact only the beta version (in fact, one of the MS officials helping me through the hands-on labs told me that some of the tutorials are in fact still alpha versions. In fact, the first time I used the new wiki I was convinced it was the 2007 version as I could see not a single improvement to it). There is still some 6 or 7 months still to pass before Microsoft has to work out all the bugs, kinks, and refinements (planned release to existing MOSS 2007 customers is at the end of April, though I would not expect something for installation much before the summer; new customers will have to wait even longer).

 

Finally, it’s worth noting that MOSS is a massively complex, and powerful system. It’s to be expected that some of the promised functionality may not work for some time, or without serious additional development and customization. In fact, any organization considering an upgrade may do well to wait until after the first service pack, or simply trial the new SharePoint Online which will have close to feature parity with the installed, on premises version.

 

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View Article  UPDATE: Introducing SharePoint 2010: learnings from SPC09

(LAS VEGAS, NV) If there was one, overarching message delivered by CEO Steve Ballmer in his keynote unveiling Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (at the annual SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas): SharePoint is no longer just an intranet solution, it’s been architected for all forms of web scenarios.

 

“SharePoint is one of my favorite Microsoft products…. It’s true,” says Ballmer. “SharePoint, in my estimation, is kind of magical.  I don’t think there’s anything like it in the market. It has become a platform for a whole big set of scenarios that were served by niche (products).”

 

New scenarios include all of the typical intranet scenarios, but all the Internet scenarios they can attack. To drive the point home, Ballmer cited many companies already using MOSS 2007 for their public website including:

 

·         Kraft Foods (consolidated 200 websites to a single platform saving $2 million per year)

·         Volvo (36 languages, 70 countries)

·         Pfizer

·         Library of Congress

·         Hawaiian Airlines

·         Kroger

·         Conservation International

 

However, it remains to be seen whether the improvements to MOSS’s web content management will be sufficient to quell the traditional content publishing and management concerns of marketing and communications managers who operate external websites. The new UI for web content management is a marked improvement – in-context editing deploying the ‘ribbon’ UI introduced in Office 2007.

 

Ballmer announced that MOSS 2010 will public beta test this November (no specific date was delivered). The MS chief also spent a lot of time talking about “the cloud” and was even so bold as to state that “SharePoint is in the center of the cloud.”

 

“It’s all in the cloud–we certainly agree with that,” said Ballmer, who stressed that SharePoint Online has more than 1 million online users (and 7,000 partners). “SharePoint is more capable, more extensible, more Internet & cloud focused. It’s an amazing product.”

 

NEW FEATURES / TOOLS:

 

·         “Ribbon” interface (in-context editing)

·         "Visual web parts” (“no more hard-coding of web parts”)

·         Supports development / design on Vista & Windows 7

·         Access services (publish Access dbases through SP)

·         New sandboxed solutions

·         Integrated rich media & Silverlight

·         Improved Visual Studio & SQL

·         Upgrades from 2007 will include a complete migration of an existing home page design / UI to 2010

·         Improved social computing (blogs, wikis, tagging, ratings, etc)

·         Improved search algorithms and FAST Search integration

·         New site scenarios for:

o        Pricing analysis

o        Hiring processes

o        Citizen management (citizen portals)

o       Project tracking

o       Sales reporting

o       Conference planning

o        Delivery scheduling

o        Compliance review sites

 

SOCIAL COMPUTING

 

“We needed to facilitate this next generation of social computing,” stated Ballmer, though not convincingly, when asked about the improvements on social media – a notorious weakness of the MOSS 2007 platform. “We’ve done this with My Sites, mashing-up, etc. I think we’ve moved towards 3.0.”

 

Improvements to the highly criticized social computing of MOSS include:

  • Better blogs, wikis, calendars
  • Co-authoring
  • Content tagging
  • Tag clouds
  • Ratings
  • Bookmarks
  • MySites “Smart Profiles” and feeds
  • Browse colleagues and experts
  • “Share This Site.”

 

“There isn’t an enterprise on the planet that doesn’t want to embrace social computing, but they worry about how to do it,” explained Ballmer. “If we can show a path to CEOs and CIOs that we can let people interact with each other the way they want to (and still protect privacy and security) then they will embrace social computing.”

 

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

 

Improvements to ECM include:

 

·         Document management: The ceiling limit on a document library moves to 10 million, and within a site collection, to hundreds of millions of documents; no longer will you have to right click to bring up the actions / options of a document, the ribbon hosts all of the options / actions the user needs

·         Taxonomy management: you will be able to have consistent content types taxonomy across server farms (applied at the document level)

·         Pictures: photos no longer have to be in an SP library, but can be uploaded from your hard drive

·         The addition of true Digital Asset Management

 

GOVERNANCE

 

Perhaps the biggest criticism or flaw of SharePoint has been the issue of governance, which Microsoft has only addressed half-heartedly, as reflected in Tom Rizzo’s comments: “There’s a lot we’re doing on governance, but its only 20% software, and 80% process,” says Rizzo, Senior Director, SharePoint. “We’ve invested a lot in best practices, centers of excellence. We’ll continue to invest, but I think we’re still need near the beginning, than the end.” In other words, governance is more the client’s responsibility than Microsoft’s.

 

SHAREPOINT CONFERENCE STATISTICS:

 

·         7.5 miles of network cable

·         7,400 participants (up from 3,800) – 94% growth

·         297 world class speakers

·        70 countries

·        165 sponsors

·         300+ hours

·         240 sessions

·         45+ hours of hands-on labas

·         18 customer sessions (Delloite)

·         2 SharePoint marriages

·         Biggest Beach Party ever by Mandalay with Huey Lewis & The News

 

Follow my SharePoint conference updates on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TobyWard #spc09

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View Article  Intranet in the cloud

You’ve probably seen the term, or heard it bantered about by geeks, or maybe your head is in it… but you may not fully understand the term “cloud” or “SasS” (software as a service) or perhaps just think its another catchy marketing acronym like MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server).

 

The “cloud” refers to cloud computing that at the risk of over-simplifying is simply hosting – computer, server, software, and other hardware and infrastructure hosting. You’re already a cloud customer, probably many times over (someone is hosting your email, website, blog, etc. In fact, 56% of internet users use webmail services such as Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo! Mail – hosted email in the cloud).

 

In short, hosting is provided as a service over the Internet. SaaS is simply hosted software that could include your website content management system, search engine, CRM (Salesforce.com), etc. The cloud is merely a metaphor based loosely on those computer network diagrams that so cleverly depict little computers with wires running between each other, servers, firewalls, etc.



  

I was recently pressed on the subject of a “hosted intranet” and why an organization shouldn’t outsource their intranet to “the cloud.” God forbid we let professionals who know what they’re doing maintain our second-rate, after-though, cost-center of an intranet!

 

It is baffling to me that the intranet isn’t hosted externally for more organizations. Well, I’m well versed with clueless executives with knee-jerk reactions around “security”, privacy, and “the way things have always been done” but I guess I’m naïve to have faith that more would start to embrace the 21st century. If these dolts can Facebook then surely there’s hope, right?

 

The biggest obstacle blocking the migration of more intranets to the cloud is culture and fear of the ‘unknown’. If the host has proper security does it matter if it’s hosted elsewhere? We do our banking online now – we can’t access the intranet over the Internet?! Most of our benefits and compensation systems are now hosted elsewhere in the cloud – we’re talking about people’s pay, insurance and benefits!

 

In fact, if it costs me less money and I don't have to worry about the maintenance then you better believe I choose hosted – and I have told clients the same. Its one of the reasons the "cloud" is expanding so fast. It would be 10 times the size if people would just get beyond the knee-jerk reaction to have everything in-house where it costs more, and probably enjoys less security than the top of the line that many hosts employ.

 

The downside to avoiding the cloud can be far more expensive: I have one client (identity protected) who spent well more than $1 million on a new intranet design and platform and it crashed in the first few minutes, never to go live again because the organization didn’t have the proper infrastructure. One-and-one-half years later, the intranet is still not live. This would never have happened had it been turned over to a host. Instead, millions of dollars have been lost, and countless thousands of employee hours.

 

Has your organization embraced the cloud, or are you wasting valuable time and skills on hosting and maintenance?

 

--

 

NEXT WEBINAR:

 

What do the best intranets look like? What are the best practices and principles for redesigning an intranet? Having designed and re-designed dozens of intranet sites (and websites), Prescient Digital Media’s Toby Ward and Catherine Elder will draw on their experiences to provide best practices in approaching intranet design.

 

Reserve your spot for: Intranet Design – A Business Approach to a Winning Design


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View Article  SharePoint strengths & weaknesses (video)

This video will create some diverging opinions and controversy, just as my presentation “SharePoint Pros & Cons” did when I delivered it in Denmark. This on-camera interview was conducted in Copenhagen immediately after my presentation (at IntraTeam). Granted I was severely jet-lagged and suffering from exhaustion when I did the interview, but I stand my words and assessment: SharePoint (MOSS 2007) is a fantastic solution, but it is not the best solution for every scenario, and every organization. Anyone who argues this should throw-away the Kool-Aid.



As I stress in my comments, SharePoint is ultimately what you make of it, and you can do some amazing things with it, at any organization. However, success with MOSS is a function of time and money. The out-of-the-box solution is not appropriate for all business scenarios in all companies. But it is an excellent solution for a small to medium size business, or as a department-level solution in a larger enterprise. Given the cost and complexity involved with customization, I don't believe it makes sense to use it as a large, enterprise intranet be-all solution for larger organizations; its possible to make it so, but what is the opportunity cost versus other portal or ECM solutions?


Feel free to comment and weigh-in with your opinions, but no flame mail please (I will just embarrass you for doing so). If you're a Microsoft employee or partner, then please disclose that you rely on SharePoint to make a living. Ditto if you're a Microsoft customer or independent consultant.


Keep in mind, I too am a SharePoint user, but we (Prescient Digital Media) also uses other CMSs, portals & social media solutions too. We are strictly technology-neutral with no reseller agreements. I have no agenda or ax to grind; I merely seek to inform my readers and clients about the strengths and weaknesses of the superb, but not perfect solution that is MOSS 2007.


ADDITIONAL READING:

Advice for SharePoint customers

SharePoint overview (pros & cons, MOSS)

The SharePoint Plan (MOSS)

SharePoint governance & intranet ownership (MOSS 2007)

SharePoint requires proper architecture & governance

Why you should or shouldn’t choose Microsoft Sharepoint

Planning for SharePoint success

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View Article  SharePoint dissected (MOSS 2007)
(PHILADELPHIA, PA – J. Boye) Insights from CMS Watch founder, and co-author of the CMS Watch Report, Tony Byrne.

Tony Byrne, CMS Watch:

  • SharePoint is part product, part platform, part ecosystem – a collection of technologies that have varying degrees of finish

  • Under-reported and under-appreciated dimension of SharePoint: built solidly on (almost) latest .NET platform

  • Be cautious of developer/integrator enthusiasm

  • Keep Implementation of SharePoint Simple (KISS)

  • Embrace configuration, some customization and integration, avoid extension (e.g. building custom applications, etc.)

  • The latest marketing from Microsoft is “to really finish or complete MOSS you should look to external partners.”

  • Oxcite, 3rd party open source blog tool for .NET (not SharePoint)

  • Just because a firm is a Microsoft partner, doesn't mean they have SharePoint expertise

Cautions:

  • Some MS partners / vendors are in over their heads

  • Not all are experts in all SP services

  • Temptation to over-engineer

  • Experienced integrators are in high-demand

Caveats:

  • Test performance, reliability, and security features carefully

  • Contrast software with "consulting-ware" (developed once for a client and re-sold)

  • Remember: its not just another module, but another vendor

  • Many partners fervently hope that MS will buy them, but Redmond typically recreates rather than acquires

  • This can be very inconvenient for you down the road with MS upgrades SharePoint


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View Article  SharePoint for Communicators
Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) is becoming the dominant intranet technology platform with nearly half of all large to medium-size organizations using it (or the previous version) to power some or all of an intranet’s components.


Here are some stats:


  • 55% of organizations have implemented or are considering implementing SharePoint (Global Intranet Trends 2009 report - 227 participant organizations)

  • 46% of those companies using social media on the intranet are using SharePoint(Intranet 2.0 Global Survey – 430+ participant organizations)

  • Only 47% of organizations have a defined governance model (Intranet 2.0 Global Survey)

  • 70% use at the department level; only 38% use it at the enterprise level (AIIM)


Many communications professionals have asked, “Is SharePoint good for my company intranet?”


SharePoint for Communicators is a webinar answers the question with advice on how to proceed.


In this five-week online workshop, we’ll examine MOSS as a technology platform, and as a communications platform for managing content including news and social media. MOSS is not known as a strong solution for a large-size enterprise intranet. But it is good starting platform in a Microsoft environment, and is very good for team and group collaboration. This workshop will consider all of the pros and cons of MOSS, with expert opinion and advice for non-techie business users and communicators. Included in this Webinar will be:


  1. Introduction to MOSS—An overview of the technology in non-techie language.

  2. Pros and cons of MOSS for communicators—The good, bad and the things Microsoft won’t always tell you.

  3. MOSS for content management—The elements and functionality of the content management system and how it compares to other systems.

  4. Planning & Governance—MOSS can in fact create more problems without the necessary planning and governance. We’ll tell you what you need to prepare.

  5. Plug-ins and alternatives to MOSS—MOSS is a very complex platform, but there are many additional modules and plug-ins that can enhance it greatly… We’ll also compare MOSS to other alternative solutions.


Webinars are asynchronous-you participate when it’s convenient for you. A new text-based lecture is posted each Monday morning, but you can take advantage of it whenever you have the time. Be sure to watch the video demo of the webinar format to determine if it’s right for your professional development needs.


Register for SharePoint for Communicators webinar

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View Article  Web Idol 2008

(AARHUS, DENMARK: jboye08) You’ve seen American Idol, and perhaps even the brutally awful version from Canada, Denmark, the UK and others… and now there’s Web Idol, for CMS vendors.

 

A fast-paced, entertaining set of competitive demos alla American Idol. Five CMS vendors present 7-minute demos showing the best features of their CMS systems. Five succinct, comparative presentations are judged by an expert panel of judges that offer pithy commentary. However, like Idol, the audience vote for the winner!
 

This year’s judges:

 

eZ systems is the defending champ from both Web Idol 2006 and Web Idol 2007 and faced easy competition.

 

This year’s competitor’s:

 

  • e-Spirit
  • eZ Systems
  • Hippo
  • SDL Tridion
  • Sitecore

 

The presentations:

 

  1. Sitecore led-off and did competently in the 7-minutes provide for the demo. I like the insite editing alla Red Dot. The ciritcs were fair, but critical.

 

  1. SDLTridion followed and was… confusing. I like the on-page AJAX driven editing without having to load multiple windows. I like the Tridion folks, but the critics were harsh.

 

  1. Open-source CMS Hippo was next-up. More focused, I like the drag-and-drop AJAX interface under user management. I don’t like the lack of in-site editing – it’s the 21st century. To quote Tony Byrne, “…like a hippo it’s (the CMS) potentially fatal to humans.” Overall, the judges appear to like Hippo best… thus far.

 

  1. eZ ran in 4th. The two-time defending champ and open-source CMS led with a very smart demo site that included advertising and lots of multimedia, and even Google maps. I like the integration of commenting and Web 2.0 with the in-site (in-context) editing. The judges seem confused and uncommitted.

 

  1. e-Spirit in the anchor position had a very competent, but lightning-fast confusing demo. The presenter was very quick and the system seems quite capable… but drab. The speed of the demo confused me greatly… I couldn’t follow what he was doing or why. Unlike the other vendors, e-Spirit finishes early… but I’m confused. I shall not be casting my vote for e-Spirit. The judges also seem confused.

 

Tony was a very good judge with some very good remarks, analysis, and quite funny. Erik and Claudia however looked and sounded lost… Where have all the good judges gone?

 

VOTING

 

Remember, like Idol, this is not comparative analysis of which CMS is best, it’s a popularity contest based on a lightning fast demo. The winner is voted on by the audience. I voted for eZ Systems. I like the AJAX, multimedia and Web 2.0. The demo site was nice and progressive.

 

The audience cast their votes…. And the winner is…Denmark-based Sitecore (1st time winner).

View Article  What the experts say about SharePoint (MOSS)

(AARHUS, DENMARK: jboye08) “SharePoint is good at a number of things,” says one SharePoint expert, addressing a group of SharePoint users and followers here in Aarhus. “But it’s bad at just as many.”

 

There continues to be much discussion, debate, interest, enthusiasm, and caution about SharePoint (MOSS 2007). Such is the case here at jboye08 where I’m addressing the conference on the subject of Intranet 2.0 (today) and eHealth 2.0 (tomorrow).

 

Gartner nails the analysis in its spring report Five Best Practices for Deploying SharePoint:

 

·          “Though it covers a broad spectrum of capabilities, MOSS 2007 is not yet a full enterprise content management (ECM) system. Organizations requiring advanced content management capabilities and process-centric applications will need to augment their capabilities with partner offerings, or deploy MOSS 2007 alongside an ECM system rather than as a replacement for it.”

 

Our own Jed Cawthorne, our resident MOSS expert at Prescient Digital Mediaoffers his own conclusions on his blog, ECM Stuff:

 

  • It might be the product for you, but how do you know unless you analyse your requirements
  • A phased implementation appears to be more successful, add bells and whistles later
  • Sharepoint in itself is not a 'strategy' - it can be part of ECM, Intranet or collaboration elements of your overall Information Management strategy
  • Contrary to MS marketing hype, Sharepoint does not actually do everything brilliantly
  • A Sharepoint deployment, like any other technology implementation will ultimately fail if not aligned with strategy, and if not properly planned with comensurate governance in place

 

I should disclose at this point that perhaps it might appear that I’m not a fan of SharePoint – or that I oppose it. Not at all; in fact, we use SharePoint for our own intranet and are upgrading to MOSS 2007. As well, we have many clients that use WSS and MOSS. However, I do think however that SharePoint is being used by too many organizations, including clients, that aren’t well served by it.


I believe there are two telling quotes, both by Shawn Shell and Alan Pelz-Sharpe, the co-authors of the CMS Watch The Sharepoint Report 2008 (TSR) (the best analysis report on MOSS that I’ve seen) that best sum-up MOSS:

 

 

  • “MOSS is very good in smaller, workgroup environments (it’s not traditionally very good for 5,000 or 10,000 concurrent users),” Alan Pelz-Sharpe (see SharePoint overview (pros & cons, MOSS).

 

Also…

 

 

A number of experts and users (owners / licensees) have weighed-in on their expert opinions and analysis of SharePoint. To avoid any controversy and to protect the individuals who were freely expressing and sharing their opinions here at jboye08 in Aarhus, here are some of the more frank quotes:

 

  • “The perception is that the search engine is terrible. I’m not 100% in agreement… the engine is pretty good, but the search interface can be weak (e.g. the engine does support wild card and Boolean searches, but usually the implemented interface does not).”

 

  • “Personal sites (My Site functionalilty) is both interesting and scary at the same time.”

 

  • “The complexity across farms is ridiculous. Make sure your consultant (MS partner or implementer) give you a list of those things that stop working across farms.”

 

Still more advice from Information Week writer Nicolas Hoover (thanks to our own Cathy Mcknight for bringing this to my attention, Can Microsoft Keep SharePoint Rolling?)

 

“The software's Swiss Army knife approach helps companies create more useful intranets, set up document sharing, offer blogs and wikis, and build a richer online company directory. This boundary-blurring nature is part of its appeal, and can even help in budgeting: IT teams that might not get the nod for document management software have been known to slip SharePoint into the Microsoft Office budget.


But SharePoint's feature sprawl can be part of the problem. By taking what comes bundled in SharePoint, companies can end up compromising on critical functions compared with best-of-breed tools. And SharePoint deployments easily can go wrong if IT teams just turn on additional modules without considering the business case, requirements, and training needed to make them part of a business process. SharePoint's all-in-one appeal may lessen as content management standards become more prevalent, making best-of-breed approaches more viable. Still, it's undeniable that SharePoint's on a roll because of intense demand to better manage and share an expanding glut of diverse content."

 

If you have MOSS, or are thinking of buying, Gartner offers the following recommendations:

 

  • To ensure that SharePoint does not become another content silo, build or update your enterprisewide content management strategy to address collaborative and basic content management.
  • Build a broad inventory of existing content management applications and repositories and assess the investment levels in those before bringing in another platform such as SharePoint.
  • Define business requirements and the corresponding technical and functional needs, which may span collaborative and process-centric content applications. Map your content management products to them with an eye toward minimizing the redundancy in application development, IT operational or other costs.
  • Examine the integration points required between MOSS 2007 and an ECM suite and assess the availability tools and technologies to ensure interoperability.
  • Establish and enforce governance policies regarding when to use and when not to use SharePoint.

 

MOSS 2007 is a wonderful solution – but its ideal for smaller companies, and can be a “massive problem” for larger ones. I like it a lot, but I’m technology neutral and am frank about its strengths and weaknesses. I’ll continue to recommend MOSS for some, but not for others.

 

ADDITIONAL READING:

Advice for SharePoint customers

Sharepoint to be the new Windows?

The pros and cons of SharePoint (MOSS)

SharePoint overview (pros & cons, MOSS)

SharePoint requires proper architecture & governance

Can Microsoft Keep SharePoint Rolling?


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