The 451 Group’s SharePoint Data
September 10, 2008
A happy quack to the reader who called “Old News Department: Continued Growth for SharePoint” to my attention. “Too Much Information” is a Web log published by the 451 Group. (The number 451 echoes the science fiction story and reminds us of temperature at which paper ignites on earth under “normal” conditions. A book burning is, therefore, a 451 event.) You can read the original 451 “take” here. I quite like the “old news” angle. I’m a specialist in a number of “old” postings. The reader wanted my comment on this piece of data picked up from Microsoft via a news release cited in the “Old News Department: Continued Growth for SharePoint” article; to wit:
Microsoft claimed $800m in SharePoint revenue (in a press release) last year for fiscal 2007, so 30% growth puts 2008 revenue at $1.04 billion, 35% growth puts it at $1.08 billion. The company also made a rather vague announcement in March the SharePoint Conference and via a press release that it had surpassed the $1 billion revenue mark. At that point, we dug into it to find the $1 billion number was for the rolling twelve-month period.
The 451 Group pointed out that the numbers were mushy. In my experience, most numbers related to software company’s revenues and customers are indeed soft. I still don’t know the final numbers on the BearStearns’ fiasco, the Enron scam, or the US government’s budget for software licenses at the General Services Administration. Therefore, it’s a safe bet that SharePoint numbers will be squishy too.
Let’s assume, however, that SharePoint is a multi billion dollar product. Further, let’s accept the idea that there are upwards of 100 million SharePoint licenses in the wild. And, let’s embrace the notion that SharePoint is Microsoft’s next generation operating system. If these assumptions are correct within a range of plus or minus 20 percent, here’s my take on the growth of SharePoint:
- The incredibly wild and wacky world of content management is going to face a nuclear winter. Already discredited in many organizations, content management like key word enterprise search systems, don’t work, are disappointing to their users, and incredibly expensive to operate. SharePoint may not be the best cookie in the batch, but Microsoft is making it easy and economical to get SharePoint and “do” content management. Interwoven, Documentum, Ektron, and the rest of the CMS crowd will have to do some fancy dancing to keep their revenues flowing and stakeholders wearing happy faces.
- SharePoint itself is going to be a big consulting business. For the most part, SharePoint works when one doesn’t ask too much of the system. Two or three people can share and collaborate. The search function is pretty awful, but that can be fixed with a quick phone call to ISYS Search Software, an outfit whose software we just tested. Watch for this write up as a feature on September 15, 2008.
- The Microsoft ecosystem is going to follow the trajectory of the mainframe ecosystem or the Oracle database ecosystem. The environment will change but the micro climates will persist within organizations for a long time. Certified Professionals will fight tooth and nail to keep SharePoint and their jobs.
The net net on SharePoint for me is that software is following the consolidation route traveled by the auto companies. Chrysler, Ford, and GM are not competitive. These giants are suffering financial emphysema. Death can be postponed, but none of these companies will be doing much more than walking slowly to local convenience store to buy a microwaved burrito.
Users are going to be the losers. SharePoint is a complex system. It hogs resources. The scale up and out model becomes too costly for most organizations. I think of SharePoint as the digital equivalent of train travel in the US. Yes, one can do it, but the journey is filled with uncertainties. When the train breaks down, the passenger has little choice but wait until the repairs are made and the journey can resume. When the trip is over, passengers step off the Amtrak thankful to have arrived and eager to put the experience behind them.
And CMS? It won’t survive in its present form. Most CMS vendors will struggle to survive on the margin of the SharePoint ecosystem and have to fight off predators hungry for the customers CMS companies have been able to retain. The phrase “nasty, brutish, and short” comes to mind. Squish numbers of not, SharePoint is cat’s pajamas.
Stephen Arnold, September 10, 2008
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