Microsoft SharePoint: The CMS Killer
March 7, 2010
I read “Interesting Perspective on How SharePoint Is Capturing the ECM Market.” The write up references a post by Lee Dallas who writes the Big Men on Content blog. The idea is that SharePoint works seamlessly with Active Directory. As a result, access and identity are part of the woodwork, and no information technology staff have to futz around so employees can find and manipulate documents, presentations, or spreadsheets. Furthermore, SharePoint put a stake in the heart of enterprise content management systems by adding collaboration to the create it, find it, and use it approach of the traditional content management vendors. SharePoint won because it added these features and did a great job marketing.
I agree that Microsoft SharePoint seems to be everywhere. I also know that Microsoft has pumped Tiger Juice into its partners and resellers to push the SharePoint solution. The marketing message is reinforced with zeal and great prices. Keep in mind that SharePoint requires a dump truck full of other Microsoft software to deliver on the bullet points in the SharePoint sales presentation.
Now my view on this brilliant success is a bit different.
First, Microsoft SharePoint has been around a long time. It is a combination of products, features, functions. When I hear SharePoint, I see the nCompass logo, circa 2001. I also think “content server”. The current incarnation of SharePoint is a bunch of stuff that requires even more Microsoft stuff to work. A number of Microsoft partners have built software to snap into SharePoint to deliver some of the features that Microsoft talks about but cannot get to work. These range from search to content management itself. I wrote about a SharePoint expert who uses WordPress because SharePoint is too much of a headache. Age can bring wisdom, but I think SharePoint’s trajectory has been one that delivers mind boggling complexity. SharePoint consultants love the product. Addled geese like me see it as one more crazy enterprise solution that today’s top managers just pay for reflexively.
Second, the world of content management has become mired in muddy road after muddy road. Some projects make travel by donkey delightful. CMS was created to help outfits without any expertise in producing information post Web pages. Then the Web morphed into an applications platform and the CMS vendors were like the buggy whip manufacturers who thought horse powered carriages were a fad. Big CMS projects almost never worked without application of generous layers of money and custom engineering. At the same time, information management became important due to the fine work of the SEC, Enron, Tyco, and other outfits. Now many organizations have to keep track of documents, not lose them like White House email. It turns out that managing electronic information is pretty difficult. The bubble gum approach of Web CMS won’t work for a nuclear power plan engineering change order. Some folks are discovering this fact that a Web page is different from tracking the versions of a diagram for a cooling pipe in an ageing pressurized water reactor. Imagine that!
Third, companies lack the dough to spend wildly for information technology. The financial challenges of many organizations have not been prevented by fancy systems. Some might argue that fancy systems accelerated the impact of certain financial problems. The reason there are the alleged 100 million SharePoint users is a result of really aggressive marketing and bundling. If SharePoint provides job security, go for it. I have heard this sentiment expressed by an information technology company in Europe on more than one occasion.
The net net of SharePoint is that Microsoft is going to make a great deal of money, but there will be a gradual loss of customers. The reason is partly due to demographics and partly due to what I call SharePoint fatigue. When users discover that the fancy metadata functions don’t work, some will poke around. Metadata must be normalized; otherwise, fancy functions don’t work very well. Fixing metadata is expensive. When a cloud service comes along with the function that normalizes metadata transparently, then SharePoint will be behind an eight ball.
SharePoint, like other Microsoft software, is reaching a point where moving forward becomes more difficult and more expensive. That’s the signal for outfits like Google to strike. The death of CMS has given SharePoint a good run. Now that SharePoint may be difficult to scale, stabilize, and extend, SharePoint becomes catnip for Googzilla. Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 7, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Since I mention Microsoft, I think I have to report non payment to the many SharePoint fans at the Department of Defense.
Surprising Non Endorsement of SharePoint from SharePoint Expert
March 2, 2010
I had to chuckle at this comment in a SharePoint expert’s SharePoint blog and its write up “What Has Been, What Is Now, and What Is Coming!. The context is that the expert is starting a new blog. Here’s the relevant passage:
One last thing… you gotta check out our new site! Dustin Miller and I collaborated on creating a new SharePoint Bootcamp site that uses WordPress as a content management solution (what, no SharePoint? Yes… we don’t use SharePoint for the sake of using it. I believe in honest assessment of which tool is the best for your needs). The design and CMS system is one thing, but the bigger thing is the ease of access to information. Subscribe to our RSS feed or iCal for the course schedule, and check out our courses by track, product and audience.
Yep, experts who don’t use the product which is their expertise. Interesting but part of the azure chip approach I opine.
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I will report logic of such illogical behavior to NASA which wishes to go to Mars. Bake sale to raise money?
Microsoft Document and Records Management
February 18, 2010
I received an email from a chipper PR type pitching me on “information governance.” After a bit of “who are you” and “why are you calling me”, I realized that “information governance is marketing talk for document management. I am fighting a losing battle as I age. I know that there are different approaches to document management. If I want to keep track of documents, I use a document management system. If I have to keep track of documents for a nuclear power plant, I use a records management system. There’s a lot of talk about “information governance,” but I don’t have a clear sense of what is under that umbrella term
To confuse me even more, I happened across a document called “Application Lifecycle Management.” The idea is that SharePoint applications have a sunrise, noon, and sunset. I will not talk about squalls, earthquakes, and landslides in this environmental metaphor for SharePoint applications. You can find this information on the MSDN.
I wanted to know how Microsoft Fast search fit into this lifecycle management. I didn’t find much information, but I did locate two documents. One was titled “Introducing Document Management in SharePoint 2010” and the other was “Introducing Records Management in SharePoint 2010”. Both flowed from the keyboards of the Microsoft Enterprise Content Management Team Blog.
Okay, now I was going to learn how Microsoft perceived Document and Records Management.
Document Management
What about document management? Since the fine management performance at Enron and Tyco, among other companies, document management has become more important. The rules are not yet at the nuclear power plant repair level of stringency, but companies have to keep track of documents. The write up affirms that SharePoint used to be a bit recalcitrant when managing documents. Here’s the passage I noted:
As we looked at how our customers were starting to use the 2007 system’s DM features, we noticed an interesting trend: These features were not just part of managed document repository deployments. Indeed, the traditional DM features were getting heavy usage in average collaborative team sites as well. Customers were using them to apply policy and structure as well as gather insights from what otherwise would have been fairly unmanaged places. SharePoint was being using to pull more and more typically unstructured silos into the ECM world.
Those pesky customers! The Document Management write up runs down features in the new product. These include more metadata functions, including metadata a a “primary navigation tool.” Here’s a screen shot. Notice that there is no search box.
So much for finding information when the metadata may not be what the user anticipated. Obviously a document management system stores documents, transformations of documents like the old iPhrase, or pointers to documents or components of documents that reside “out there” on the network. The write up shifts gears to the notion of “an enterprise wiki and a traditional enterprise document repository.”
Records Management
The Records Management write up did not tackle the nuclear power plant type of records management. The write up presented some dot points about records management; for example, retention and reports. Ah, reports. Quite useful when a cooling pipe springs a leak. One needs to know who did what when, with what materials, what did the problem look like before the repair, what did it look like after the repair, which manufacturer provided the specific material, etc.
The point of the write up struck me as “the power of metadata” or indexing. Now the hitch in the git along is that multiple information objects have to be tagged in a consistent manner. After all, when the pipe springs a leak, the lucky repair crew, dosimeters on their coveralls, need to read and see the information objects related to the problem. Yep, that means engineering drawings, photos, and sometimes lab tests, purchase orders, and handwritten notes inserted in the file.
My conclusion is that Microsoft content management, regardless of “flavor”, may be similar to Coca-Cola’s New Coke. I am not sure it will do what the company and the user expect.
Stepping Back
I know that thousands, possible millions of customers will use SharePoint for document and records management. I want to point out that using SharePoint to manage a Web site can be a tough job. My view is that until I see one of these systems up and running in client organization, I am skeptical that SharePoint has the moxie to deliver either of these functions in a stable, affordable, scalable solution.
Even more interesting will be my testing search and retrieval in both of these systems. With zero reference to search and a great dependence on the semi magic word taxonomy, I think some users won’t have a clue where a particular document is and will have to hunt, which is time consuming and frustrating for some. In my experience, lawyers billing clients really thrive on hunting. Everyday business professionals may not be into this sport.
From a practical point of view, two posts, each built on a single platform with feature differences confused me. Is not a single write up with one table with three columns another way to explain these two versions of SharePoint.
In short, more confusion exists within the mind of the addled goose. The content management “experts” have created some pretty spectacular situations in organizations with SharePoint. Now it is off to the Sarbanes Oxley and Department of Energy school of “information governance.” Will SharePoint get an A or an F? Will SharePoint shaped to the rigors of document management and records management face a high noon or a Norwegian winter’s sunset?
Stephen E Arnold, February 18, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Since I mentioned nuclear energy, I will report my doing work for nothing to the DOE. I prefer the building next to White Flint Mall, which is now a white elephant in some ways.
Microsoft Fast on Linux and Unix Innovation
February 15, 2010
It’s Valentine’s Day. I feel quite a bit of affection for the system professionals who have licensed Fast Search ESP, and I hope each finds search love. I think there will be a “tough” element to this love. And like other types of love, there will be ups and downs. Microsoft practiced some “tough love” for licensees of the Linux and Unix versions of Fast Search & Transfer’s Enterprise Search Platform recently. I am in a discursive frame of mind, and I will share my opinion about the “tough love” for the Linux and Unix licensees of the 1997 technology that comprises some of Fast Search & Transfer’s system.
The not-too-surprising announcement that Microsoft would stop supporting Fast Search & Transfer’s Linux and Unix customers surprised some folks. I think a handful of resellers were delighted because customers with non-Windows versions of Fast Search cannot change horses in the middle of the Tigris River, as Alexander the Great discovered in 331 BCE. Some poobahs pointed out that open source search would become a hot ticket for Fast Search Linux and Unix licensees. Others took a more balanced view of figuring out whether to rip and replace or supplement the aging Fast Search system with one of the more specialized solutions now available; for example, Exalead’s system could be snapped in without much hassle, based on my research for Successful Enterprise Search Management, published by Galatea in the UK last year. (Martin White was my co-author.)
Source: http://www.zastavki.com/pictures/1024×768/2008/Saint_Valentines_Day_St.Valentine_004959_.jpg
What I found interesting is that the Microsoft Enterprise Search blog contained some information from Bjørn Olstad, CTO, FAST and Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft. The write up’s title is “Innovation on Linux and Unix,” and it appeared on February 4, 2010.
Mr. Olstad wrote:
When we announced the acquisition two years ago, we said that we were committed to cross-platform innovation—that we’d “continue to offer stand-alone versions of ESP that run on Linux and UNIX,” and that we would provide updates to these versions to address customer concerns and add new features. Over the last two years, we’ve done just that.
The deal was consummated in April 2008. In October 2008, the Norwegian authorities seized some company information, but there has not been much news about the investigation into the pre-acquisition Fast Search & Transfer’s activities. At any event, it is now February 2010, so Microsoft has been operating Fast Search for the period between April 2008 and February 2010. That’s not quite two years, which is a nit, but software works when details are correct. What’s clear is that Fast Search and its Enterprise Search Platform or ESP is pared down and focused on the Windows platform.
I also noted this passage:
When we announced the acquisition two years ago, we said that we were committed to cross-platform innovation—that we’d “continue to offer stand-alone versions of ESP that run on Linux and UNIX,” and that we would provide updates to these versions to address customer concerns and add new features. Over the last two years, we’ve done just that.
SharePoint Sunday: A Slow Week
January 25, 2010
The goslings and I were surprised at the lack of search related information from Microsoft and its certified developers in the last seven days.
We did come across one write up in Get the Point, “SharePoint Server 2010 Inside Scoop: Where’s the Site Search Drop Down Menu?” We have to confess that we have never looked for the site search drop down menu, and the tip may be quite helpful to some.
The drop down menu is gone but it can be restored. Here’s the method:
“…Click Site Actions, Site Settings. Under Site Collection Administration, choose Site Settings.
To return to the SharePoint Server 2007 experience, under Site Search Dropdown Mode, choose Show and default to contextual scope.”
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2010
A freebie. I will report this unpleasant situation to the Department of Navy, which specializes in finding underwater, concealed objects.
SharePoint Sunday: A Calm Week
January 17, 2010
First, SharePoint excitement did not ruffle the feathers of the Beyond Search team this week. There were a few questions about my reference to the SharePoint Fast search tweaking white paper. These were mostly about the complexity of the settings and the possible interdependency. My response was, “You think Microsoft is going to recode Fast Search ESP?” The people with whom I spoke expressed surprise that a system built for Linux would not be rebuilt from the ground up for the SharePoint world. Not even Microsoft’s code wizards can perform this type of task in the time between April 2008 and today. If you missed the white paper, here’s a download link. You will need the Microsoft file viewer to see this document once you have downloaded the file, Optimize search relevance with Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint (Beta).
Second, we honked with glee when we learned that PMG.Net Inc. published a Service Catalog Suite. This product is compatible with MOSS. The catalog is:
most easy-to-use, easy-to-configure, and easy-to-deploy service catalog and portfolio management solution on the market today. PMG has been a pioneer with deep experience in e-Commerce, portal, and collaboration for almost 15 years. PMG SCS is the culmination and powerful combination of three of our flagship products:
PMG iRequest ~ e-Commerce online catalog and request system with over 500 built-in templates
PMG iDeliver ~ Business Process Management Suite (BPMS) providing powerful workflow design, integration, and automation capabilities
PMG iCollaborate ~ for exceptionally easy content management and collaboration.
You can find more information on the PMG Web site. Worth a look in our opinion.
Finally, we found “How to Use SharePoint Metadata to Improve Search and Control Content – Part 3: Classifying SharePoint Content to Improve Search and Control Content” interesting. We hear a lot about metadata and how it is the greatest thing since sliced bread was invented in the library in Ephesus several centuries ago. Yep, metadata is a big, new thing for some folks. This write up walks through the metadata components and concludes with this statement:
The need for a standardized content search and workflow dictate that metadata structures should be standardized and consistent across SharePoint environment in an organization. Different evolutionary approaches can be taken to design and maintain these structures. Coupled with multiple mechanisms for entering and updating metadata values for your SharePoint content will result in an effective, consistent and reliable search experience and an efficient automation of business processes through workflows.
We agree. Organizations may find it helpful to seek the support of a trained information professional with experience in the development of controlled term lists. The key idea is that lousy metadata almost guarantees lousy search results. Good metadata, on the other hand, can make even less than spectacular content processing systems work better.
Stephen E Arnold, January 17, 2010
A freebie. No one paid me to write about SharePoint, not even the Department of Defense which has quite a few SharePoint fans.
Microsoft SharePoint and Word Template Files
January 14, 2010
Short honk: The Beyond Search goslings spotted a document on the Microsoft Support site. Its title is “The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Search service does not full-text index Office Word 2007 template files (.dotx) in Office SharePoint Server 2007.” No big deal but with the hassle over XML, I found the fact interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, January 13, 2010
Another freebie. I think I have to report my not being paid for a SharePoint post to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Is that right? I think the outfit shares office space with the US Postal Museum.
SharePoint Sunday: Microsoft Fast Tuning Document
January 11, 2010
Microsoft has published in the XPS format “Optimize Search Relevance with Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint (Beta)”. If you don’t have the XPS viewer installed, you will have to download that Adobe Acrobat inspired program from Microsoft.com/downloads. If you can’t locate the file, you can use Google to bing you to the appropriate link. (I had to fiddle a bit to get the XPS file to render because the download for XP would not run. My Windows 7 machine was more compliant.)
What interested me about this document is that it addresses relevance performance issues for the new search system. Even more interesting is that Fast Search & Transfer has been licensing software to the enterprise since 2004. The performance challenges of ESP have become familiar friends to some administrators. The fact that a 23-page technical white paper is required * before * the actual product ships furrowed my brow.
I know that many Certified Microsoft Professionals salivate when these types of opportunities arise. I don’t think that many Chief Financial Officers will be as gleeful. Money is required to address certain search performance issues. The Fast ESP system, like other complex, older search architectures, poses some significant hurdles for the CFO who wants engineers to spring to finish a search optimization job and the related bits of craft necessary to tune content processing, index refreshes, and the burden of certain content that must be crunched as soon as the info arrives.
The document reminds me that I cannot get too frisky when thinking about or using the information in the white paper. I will do my best to keep my friskiness under control. I think you should read the document and let it speak for itself.
Let me highlight some of the tips that caught my attention. First, the white paper makes clear that one may want to “prevent indexing irrelevant SharePoint content.” That’s interesting advice. The user does not know what he or she needs. A search therefore that is selective or winnows down what is in the index means that a user may not find what he or she seeks, may not have a complete set of pertinent information, or will have to supplement an online search with the old fashioned, real expensive approach—the Easter egg hunt. The trend in my experience is to index as much information that is available. Exclusion of information is tricky, and I for one don’t want to explain that the irrelevant content I did not process is exactly what was needed to close a big deal or get a fact verified. I can apply the same concern to the statement “Encourage archiving and deleting old content.” I know that old content may not be frequently accessed. But if the needed information is “old”, should the user be denied knowledge that germane content is indeed available.
The paper then shifts to running the Fast Search connector. A connector is a code shim that hooks content to the content processing system. My son’s company, Adhere Software, is in the connector business, and my understanding is that multiple connectors are required because organizations have diverse content ty8pes. But if there is one Fast Search connector, one has to tune it. The settings strike to the heart of the performance on a content processing system. The idea is not to crawl for new or updated content frequently. This is at odds with some companies’ desire to have the most timely information in the search system. If you get the crawl wrong, in my experience the users email, asking, “Where is that document?” One of the flaws in enterprise search is that the basic content acquisition method is at odds with the expectations of the users. Exalead, for example, delivers content within a 12 to 15 minute window. The other vendors struggle to match this timeliness. I don’t think the “new” version of Fast Search will be much different. Exalead and a couple of other outfits are the present speed champs in the enterprise. The code base in Exalead is “newer” than that in Fast Search which dates from the late 1990s.
Relevance is a tricky topic. In order to generate results that are useful to a user, enterprise systems require more care and feeding than some vendors reveal during the run up to contract signing. The section “Tune relevance in Fast Search for SharePoint” makes clear that term lists and manual promotion or demotion of certain information are needed. Hit boosting is important and today’s boosted document may be tomorrow’s demoted document. The hands on part of a search system like Fast Search is often a matter of trial and error. An unexpected result can create quite a bit of excitement. This type of tuning is expensive. The dependencies within the Fast Search system often create a need to revise the changes. The tuning segment is several pages long, and I suggest you read it, considering the cost implications of the recommendations that you as the search manager will have to perform yourself or hire specialists. Plan to spend quite a bit of time with the staging server implementation of Fast Search. Making relevancy changes while the plane is in the air can be exciting. I find drill level setting particularly enervating.
The linguistic relevance tuning is an important exercise. The idea is that some of nifty features like suggested content and forgiveness for poor spelling requires some manual experimentation and adjustment. I don’t know too many SharePoint administrators who have deep linguistic and semantic background. I know I don’t, and we do this stuff for a living. I rely on specialists, but these can be tough to find. A fiddly mistake can wreck havoc with the search system itself.
The white paper devotes a page and a half to custom search applications. As you might expect, quite a bit of useful detail was excluded to make the custom search application fit in a page and a half. The inclusion of the topic revealed to me that Microsoft is making an effort to minimize the complexity of creating a useful search enabled application. I know from many years in the search field that few SharePoint administrators posses the expertise to handle the challenges a search based application presents. Some point administrators have confidence in their ability. This confidence can undergo some alteration when a simple job becomes a death march that seems to have no end. If one does not know what one does not know, the search based application will send that person to boot camp quickly.
Several observations:
- Microsoft is going to give SharePoint licensees the idea that tuning Fast Search is not big deal. I think that Fast Search tuning will become a big deal and very quickly. The complexity of Fast Search cannot be minimized or swept under the rug no matter how many azure chip consultants assert that life is simple. Not in Fast Search land I opine.
- The white paper is a shopping list of tasks. The code samples are helpful, but the guidance is not deep. This means that a SharePoint administrator following the steps outlined in this white paper will find himself or herself with quite a technical challenge. What makes life exciting is that the dependencies within and among the Fast Search “control knobs” are not documented. Fast Search is not an iPhone app that one can master if a matter of minutes. Tuning Fast Search is challenging technical work.
- The omission of references to third party experts who will be needed to handle certain tasks such as the controlled terms operations sets the stage for a big surprise. Linguistic components are not intuitive, and the work requires experts who know how to set up term lists that deliver meaningful results to the user.
My view is that Microsoft is beginning to understand what a challenge Fast Search will be to the average SharePoint administrator. Enterprise search appliance and purpose built search systems vendors will see the broad deployment of Fast Search as the best marketing for their competitive products.
Pretty exciting stuff.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 11, 2010
No one paid me to write this, but I believe that if I were actually a salesperson I could have found a couple of outfits eager to have me slap their SharePoint search solution on the blog page displaying this essay. Also, no dough. I will report this to the administrator of Walter Reed Hospital. My idea is that those under stress may seek remediation at that fine facility.
SharePoint Sunday: January 3, 2010 Round Up
January 4, 2010
Herd them SharePoint geese. Yee-hah. The goslings and I love SharePoint almost as much as Exchange. If you are a SharePoint 2010 wrangler, you may find these tips and tricks helpful. If not, click away, partner. The addled goose may trample you with its stampeding goslings who are full as a tick after New Year’s Eve partying.
- Do you know how to get the Search Query API calls to be logged in the search usage analysis reports? If the answer is no, then you will need to mosey over to Trailblazer’s SharePoint Blog. You will find the explanation and a code snippet to get you started. Check out the pre requisites. Omit one, partner, and the method won’t work. Log analysis is too much work for some busy SharePoint administrators in my opinion.
- If you are not aware of the social freight that will be heaped on SharePoint and its supporting servers, you will want to take a look at “Ray Ozzie’s New Social Lab: What It Means For Enterprise 2.0.” Microsoft has been gnawing on social functions for five or more years, but its seems that everything old is new again, including a social lab, big ideas, and more bloat for SharePoint. SharePoint may be getting roostered up.
- We had a client call us last week and talk about enterprise memory and knowledge management. We are not sure what knowledge is, but we poked around and provided some ideas. In the course of our research, we came across Melodika.net’s “Building a Corporate Knowledge Structure with KWizCom’s Wiki Plus.” the idea is that this tool runs within SharePoint and it seems to provide the type of content capture and access functions our caller wanted. You can get more information about KWizCom’s products and services here.
As a final note, one of the Microsoft execs (Chris Liddell) on duty when the $1.23 billion acquisition of Fast Sear ch & Transfer SA took place has skedaddled from Redmond. The fellow is now working at General Motors. I wonder what super acquisitions he will engineer at that fine organization. I think the assets of the Tucker Corporation and Studebaker Corporation may be in play. GM may not want to let those hot properties go up the flume.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 4, 2010
No one paid me to provide this summary of SharePoint search information, darn it. I suppose I need to alert the Joint Fire Science Program because I wrote about such a hot product as SharePoint without taking cash.
SharePoint Sunday: Microsoft Geeks and Sales
December 28, 2009
Not much SharePoint excitement last week. I have been sitting on a post called “The Problem with Sales Guys… (A Peek into Complex Adaptive Systems). The write up is by Paul Culmsee. My hunch is that the point of the essay is to explain that engineers need the sales person, and the sales person needs the engineer. I agree. There was one passage that provided me some food for thought:
If SharePoint were a fast food, it would either be one of those giant steaks that you get your name on the wall if you finish, or the Guatemalan chili that sent the normally invincible Homer into the spirit world. It is so seductive to the sales guys because it is in demand, but their distance to the assholes means that they will think it should be just like any other IT infrastructure oriented project to install. Therefore, some integrators will be doomed to repeatedly bite off more than they can chew and by the time they realize it, the long term damage will be done.
When I read about this, I said to myself, “When Microsoft Fast meets up with SharePoint, there’s going to be a run on Guatemalan chili.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 28, 2009
No one paid me to write this. I would probably not eat Guatemalan chili if it were offered as an inducement. I will report this to the manager of the GSA’s cafeteria outsourcing team. I think Guatemalan chili is on the GSA menu every second Tuesday of the month.
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