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.
Microsoft and a New Cloud Formation
January 15, 2010
A few days ago we tried to access one of the small and mid sized business download sites operated by Microsoft. It seemed to be on holiday. Today I read the CNet report about Web market share. The article “Google Rules Search in December, Bing Drops” provided some numbers showing Google widened its lead in Web search. One comment that struck me was:
Google accommodated almost 6.7 billion queries, capturing a 67.3 percent share of the month’s searches.
I don’t believe these data for one Kentucky Wildcat minute. What I do believe is that the decision engine, a cloud service, is drifting off. But the interesting cloud news was the tie up between HP and Microsoft. I know that Microsoft was not too keen on other vendors’ hardware, particularly when it ships with Linux. I also heard that Microsoft’s data centers have some HP hardware. Now the companies are, according to “HP’s Hurd Calls $250m Microsoft Agreement ‘Breakthrough Stuff,” teaming for a cloud computing play. Allegedly $250 million will be invested to “better integrate corporate software and hardware.”
Simplifying life for corporate information technology professionals is one objective. And the money:
will be spent across a range of areas — including email servers, database management, and cloud computing — to make HP’s hardware work smoothly with Microsoft’s software in a wider variety of settings.
My view is that cloud computing can simplify * some * IT challenges. But the complexities of SharePoint and Microsoft Fast Search won’t really go away. In the cloud, these will be hidden and someone has to pay for the engineers who have to keep these puppies from misbehaving. An investment on this scale suggests that Microsoft knows it has some gaps to fill in cloud computing, but I don’t think HP type engineering will resolve these. Some of those former Alta Vista guys would probably be able to make a contribution in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, January 15, 2010
Full disclosure: I am sitting with Tess and Tyson. Both are asleep. No one paid me to point out that putting complex systems in the cloud does not resolve their complexity nor the cost of dealing with that complexity. “Cloud”, you say. I am under the thumb of NOAA.
Microsoft and the Cloud Burger: Have It Your Way
November 19, 2009
I am in lovely and organized Washington, DC, courtesy of MarKLogic. The MarkLogic events pull hundreds of people, so I go where the action is. Some of the search experts are at a search centric show, but search is a bit yesterday in my opinion. There’s a different content processing future and I want to be prowling that busy boulevard, not sitting alone on a bench in the autumn of a market sector.
The MarkLogic folks wanted me to poke my nose into its user meeting. That was a good experience. And now I am cooling my heels for a Beltway Bandit client. I have my watch and my wallet. With peace of mind, I thought I would catch up on my newsreader goodies.
I read with some surprise “Windows Server’s Plan to Move Customers Back Off the Cloud” in beta news. As I understand the news story, Microsoft wants its customers to use the cloud, the Azure service. Then when fancy strikes, the customer can license on premises software and populate big, hot, expensive to maintain servers in the licensee’s own data center. I find the “have it your own way” appealing. I was under the impression that the future was the cloud. If I understand this write up, the cloud is not really the future. The “future” is the approach to computing that has been here since I took my first computer programming class in 1963 or so.
I found this passage in the article interesting:
If you write your code for Windows Server AppFabric, it should run on Windows Azure,” said Ottaway, referring to the new mix-and-match composite applications system for the IIS platform. “What we are delivering in 2010 is a CTP [community technology preview] of AppFabric, called Windows Azure AppFabric, where you should be able to take the exact same code that you wrote for Windows Server AppFabric, and with zero or minimal refactoring, be able to put it up on Windows Azure and run it.” AppFabric for now appears to include a methodology for customers to rapidly deploy applications and services based on common components. But for many of these components, there will be analogs between the on-Earth and off-Earth versions, if you will, such that all or part of these apps may be translated between locales as necessary.
Note the “shoulds”. Also, there’s a “may be”. Great. What does this “have it your own way” mean for enterprise search?
First, I don’t think that the Fast ESP system is going to be as adept as either Blossom, Exalead, or Google at indexing and serving results from the cloud for enterprise customers. The leader in this segment is not Google. I would give the nod to Blossom and Exalead. There’s no “should” with these systems. Both deliver.
Second, the latency for a hybrid application when processing content is going to be an interesting challenge for those brave enough to tackle the job. I recall some issues with other vendors’ hybrid systems. In fact, these performance problems were among the reasons that these vendors are not exactly thriving today. Sorry, I cannot mention names. Use your imagination or sift through the articles I have written about long gone vendors.
Third, Microsoft is working from established code bases and added layers—wrappers, in my opinion—to these chunks of code that exist. That’s an issue for me because weird stuff can happen. Yesterday one Internet service provider told me that his shop was sticking with SQL Server 2000. “We have it under control”, he said. With new layers of code, I am not convinced that those building a cloud and on premises solution using SharePoint 2010 and the “new” Fast ESP search system are going to have stress free days.
In short, more Microsoft marketing messages sound like IBM’s marketing messages. Come to think of it hamburger chains have a similar problem. I think this play is jargon for finding ways to maximize revenues, not efficiencies for customers. When I go to a fast food chain, no matter what I order, the stuff tastes the same and delivers the same health benefits. And there’s a “solution accelerator.” I will have pickles with that. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, November 19, 2009
I hereby disclose to the Internal Revenue Service and the Food and Drug Administration that this missive was written whilst waiting for a client to summon me to talk about topics unrelated to this post. This means that the write up is a gift. Report it as such on your tax report and watch your diet.
SharePoint Overview
May 6, 2009
Barb Mosher wrote “SharePoint Online (SaaS) Review – What It Is and Isn’t.” You can find the full write up published by CMS Wire here. Ms. Mosher has done a very good job of explaining the Software as a Service implementation of SharePoint. She walks through the basics and provides some screenshots. She has done what she could to make these screenshots easy to follow, but I find the steps for some basic tasks convoluted. Addled geese are not good candidates for SharePoint wisdom, I suspect. The most useful part of the article is her description and lists of what is included and what is not included. With regards to search, it seemed that only the bare bones of queries within a site are supported. I have questions about the stability of SharePoint from the cloud, which she did not address. Latency also triggers questions in my mind. Useful information to download and keep close at hand.
Stephen Arnold, May 6, 2009
Migrating SharePoint Objects
April 27, 2009
I like the notion of federating; that is, leaving information where it is and then pulling what’s needed without crating a duplicated source store. I was interested in this Web log post “Migrating SharePoint Content between Different Site Templates and Preserving all the Necessary Metadata” because the approach ran counter to my method. Migration is sometimes necessary; for instance, a merger requires that the acquired firm’s information be placed under the control of the purchaser’s information technology department. If you need a method to migrate SharePoint, you will want to navigate to Boris Gomiunik’s article here and download the steps. There are eight steps, and I did not see a quick and easy way to automate this set of procedures. Like much in the SharePoint environment, a human must enter values and make decisions. The approach is great for the billable SharePoint consultant and makes a SharePoint administrator a must-have headcount. But for the senior manager, the costs associated with this somewhat tedious procedures are likely to be an issue. In my experience, the more manual intervention in a method, the greater the chance for mistakes. SharePoint may be a candidate for the cloud because in today’s financial climate eliminating headaches, errors, and expenses may reduce on premises software installations magnetic appeal. There was no reference to what fixes had to be made to get the SharePoint search system to rebuild its index and point to the correct instance of the migrated and potentially duplicate content. I wonder if that requires another multi step process involving lots of human fiddling?
Stephen Arnold, April 26, 2009
SharePoint Online
April 5, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to Tobias Zimmergren’s SharePoint Online—A First Look” here. On premises SharePoint installations are tar balls that become tar pits. The hapless information technology dinosaurs caught in these traps will struggle and probably die. Uncontrollable costs pull down even the brightest SharePoint wizards in a lousy economic climate.
Mr. Zimmergren’s article makes a very strong case for hosted SharePoint or what the trophy generation consultants call cloud based SharePoint. The idea is solid. Let experts figure out how to make SharePoint behave and maybe perform some useful content related tricks. The users access the needed SharePoint services via a broadband connection.
He does not talk about finding information in the SharePoint system, which is a major weakness of hosted SharePoint. If you can live with the limitations of Microsoft’s approach to indexing, then you are going to be happy. If not, you will have to pursue some other options.
I urge you to read Mr. Zimmergren’s write up. He explains how cloud based SharePoint works and provides useful information to those who may be singing the on premises SharePoint blues.
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
SharePoint Trojan Horsed
March 26, 2009
The article “Where Worlds Collide – and Then There’s SharePoint” her by Oliver Marks gave me a view of SharePoint I had not previously considered. Here is the passage that I found notable:
SharePoint is often Trojan horsed in ‘free’ with other Microsoft products and can be used as a shared drive document repository by end users with no financial impact. The vaunted collaboration components in the current iteration are rudimentary, and a partner ecosphere has grown up to essentially use SharePoint as a database foundation. Going forward SharePoint is everywhere, and as future iterations of a cloud oriented Microsoft Office hook into the next iterations of SharePoint, it seems likely an extensive new walled garden will emerge. How and if this Microsoft ecosphere will allow interoperability with the open source world is a loaded question.
I have highlighted the hook that snagged me. SharePoint is often a bargain. If Microsoft tosses in more robust search, then the magnetic pull of SharePoint gets stronger. I quite like the phrase “Trojan horsed”’
Stephen Arnold, March 26, 2009
Register Reports Microsoft Cloud Database Plan
February 28, 2009
SQL Server comes with a search function. SQL Server also is the muscle behind some of SharePoint’s magic. With the move to the cloud, Microsoft’s database plans have been a bit of a mystery to me. The Register provided some useful information and commentary about SQL Server in “Microsoft Cloud to Get ‘Full’ SQL Server Soon?” here. The Register reported that Microsoft may offer two different data storage options. Details are murky but Microsoft seems content to offer multiple versions of Vista. SharePoint comes in different flavors. Microsoft offers a number of search options. I find it difficult to figure out what’s available and what features are available in these splinter products. If the Register was right, then the same consumer product strategy used for shampoo and soup may be coming to the cloud. I find multiple variants of one product confusing, but I am definitely an old goose, somewhat uncomfortable in the hip new world of branding and product segmentation.
Stephen Arnold, February 28, 2009
Amazon, Capgemini: Cloud Computing Needs MBAs
November 21, 2008
SharePoint in the cloud is tricky even for Microsoft. Imagine that you are a Microsoft competitor working with a company stuffed full of MBAs and egos. Your job, if you decide to accept it, is to get SharePoint working in the cloud. One of my two or three readers sent me a link to a Web log on MSDN here. That blog post pointed to this Amazon news story which I had previously overlooked. If you want even more detail, there’s a PDF with more Amazon word smithing here. After you tunnel through the links, the point is that a consulting firm will sell and integrate client IT functions with Amazon Web Services. After all the clicking and backlink reading, Amazon’s stock fell even lower. I know the financial climate is bad, and I had hopes that this significant announcement about the AWS ecosystem would have revivified the Amazon share price. I was disappointed. Amazon is working hard to make its cloud initiative return big dividends. But the company counts objects, not dollars. Now the job of using Microsoft applications to compete with Amazon will have the able assistance of MBAs. I will watch this exercise with considerable interest.
Stephen Arnold, November 21, 2008
Prices for First Microsoft Cloud Services
November 16, 2008
Update November 18, 2008 More cloud pricing here.
InfoWorld reported that some Microsoft cloud services will be available on Monday, November 17, 2008. You can read “Microsoft to Launch Online SharePoint, Exchange on Monday” here. The article does not address who is eligible to buy, the minimum purchase, or how this service will fit into certified partners’ hosted offerings. I continue to be skeptical about the manageability of hosted SharePoint and its performance. You may be a SharePoint fan, but I am firmly on the fence because the costs associated with getting the darn thing to deliver on the marketing promises are too rich for some of my customers. In my opinion, the most interesting part of this InfoWorld article is not the absence of answers to my questions. The pricing is quite aggressive; for example:
- Office Communications, $15 per user per month
- Hosted Exchange, $10 per user per month
- SharePoint, $7.25 per user per month.
My reaction is that Microsoft wants to snag as much cloud market share as possible and put pricing pressure on anyone who cares to challenge the $65 billion giant. Google will have its paws full. Amazon has already introduced its Windows service. Salesforce.com has pointed out some of the challenges Microsoft faces. We’ll see soon enough.
What I want to see is a hosted Microsoft Fast search system that handles billions of documents.
Stephen Arnold, November 16, 2008
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