Microsoft SharePoint—Juggernaut or Juggled Stats
October 21, 2009
ComputerWorld’s “Is Microsoft’s SharePoint Unstoppable, or Mostly Smoke and Mirrors?” struck me as a rain-on-the-parade write up. The story appeared during the sold-out SharePoint conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. (I am waiting for Day 2 which will reveal the results of the time and money invested in Fast ESP, the industrial strength search and retrieval solution for SharePoint and other enterprise information systems.) The core idea is that Microsoft inflates its market and financial data. Microsoft says that it does not.
The ComputerWorld write up presents data about the number of SharePoint users (more than 100 million) and the revenue attributed to the product (about $1.3 billion dollars). The story also gives Microsoft and experts who follow Microsoft activities to offer examples of the importance of the product. The story highlights some folks who think that SharePoint’s track record is one of those inflated marketing efforts that some vendors use to define reality.
My view is a bit different. The status quo for SharePoint is important but SharePoint is going to have to respond to Google’s increasing commitment to enterprise applications. I am less interested in SharePoint today than in what Microsoft does to thwart Google. The face off promises to be interesting because both companies share some similar characteristics; for example, arrogance.
But Microsoft is a better marketing operation and it has a larger reseller and partner mercenary force. Google, on the other hand, has demographics, money, and technology. In terms of technical excellence, I can’t get too excited about Microsoft SharePoint. On the other hand, Google is not rolling out products that give me a great deal of confidence either. Both companies have to do more with their enterprise solutions.
Long road ahead for ShaerPoint and Google’s enterprise applications. Long, long road for the juggernaut to travel. Both companies are pretty good jugglers. I quite like Google’s assertion about its market penetration. Two peas in a pod.
Stephen Arnold, October 21, 2009
Another freebie. Rest happily FCC, FTC, or LoC. No moola to me for this write up.
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