Robert
Scoble pointed to this article
over the weekend...Informit.com:
Five things wrong with SharePoint:
Some pretty bold assertions about what's wrong with SharePoint.
I have been accused many times of having a Microsoft bar code tattooed on my neck over the years, as a long time consultant on Microsoft technologies. So, while posting these failings may not exactly be like Luther nailing his treatise to the door of the church, I feel compelled to point out that as a product, SharePoint, like the king, is wearing no clothes.His five reasons are:
There are five reasons, Bill, why SharePoint is underutilized.
1. It's a crappy mish-mash of multiple technologies.
2. The development team is playing the Longhorn card.
3. There are two SharePoint products, which is confusing.
4. Support for SharePoint is lacking.
5. Microsoft has not stated a strategic direction for SharePoint
What I find especially interesting is watching the blog responses in the Microsoft community to this article. In the past, some have tried to brand the "Lotus community" as sensitive, rabid, or inflammatory, based on reactions to criticism. Let's see how Microsoft-oriented bloggers handle this one...
One MS MVP's response is titled Mr. Drips, please call 732-5489. He uses helpful language such as "get over it".
Another MS MVP (whose Google ads don't render properly in Firefox) also takes the approach of slamming the article's author, rather than his content.
One of my favorites is the SharePoint Portal MVP saying
First off, SharePoint was never a competitor for pure portal products. While the SharePoint Portal Server product might have the word Portal in it, that's an overloaded term and it means different things to different people, companies, products, and purposes.I'll let my colleagues in the WebSphere Portal team know about this right away, so they can start telling customers who ask the difference between the products "well you see, SharePoint isn't really a competitor...".
And then we have a Microsoft SharePoint product manager responding, Arpan Shah. This is good -- exactly what blogs should be doing. On the negative side, Shah seems to take the approach of "you are ill-informed, therefore you are wrong". He, too, attacks the author rather than the content ("A part of me didn't want to blog about this... because it gives Mike's article more importance than it deserves"). In true MS contrarian fashion, Shah says that the fact that there are two products branded SharePoint is "a good thing". Really?
In the end, it seems like almost all of this is mostly hot air. There's a lot to be learned about perception across all these articles and blogs, though.
UPDATE 11 July 10:29 AM:
Bill Simser deleted his "Mr. Drips, please call 732-5489" blog entry, calling it "my emotions getting the better of me". Breach of blogging etiquette, isn't that? Guess he didn't want that second quote going too much further, but I'll leave it here.
Another MS-focused blogger says "get over it".
Also, as there have been questions why I pushed a bit on the SharePoint brand: My point is, Microsoft did a great job streamlining their business-focused branding with Office System and Windows Server System. SharePoint is a sub-brand that straddles these two brands. Their overlap is unclear in the minds of a lot of customers and analysts that I interact with. Thus, the attitude that was in Shah's blog entry of basically "it works, your wrong" is really what I was commenting on. MS often pokes at WebSphere as a brand being a "bucket of bolts", but there is a difference between a unifying brand (WebSphere, Workplace, etc) and applying one to multiple overlapping products.
Post a Comment
- 2
Mark Harrison http://markharrison.co.uk/blog | 7/11/2005 4:03:23 AM
>> Shah says that the fact that there are two products branded SharePoint is "a good thing". Really?
So how many different products are branded WebSphere ??
- 3
Axel Janssen | 7/11/2005 8:25:23 AM
@2: Websphere is the name of a product line. There is a j2ee application server (Websphere Application Server) with different versions for varying needs, a Messaging Platform (Websphere MQ) and a Development Tool (which now has Rational brand). How many products from DaimlerChrysler are branded Mercedes?
For my taste this Sharepoint shooting might come a bit early. WAS 3.5 or EJB 1.0 (LoL) also had a lot of flaws and now it is much better (WAS 5.0) or getting much better (EJB 3.0). MS might improve their Sharepoint, too.
Nevertheless the good thing with J2EE is, that there are a lot of competent voices, which critizise when necesary. And different vendors like JBoss or Bea. Not sure if there is same level of good 'old checks & balances on Microsoft side.
Axel
- 4
Subhan http://slate.blogspirit.com | 7/11/2005 8:58:00 AM
I had experienced two migrations from Lotus to Exchange/Sharepoint
1. In first case, the firm which is also a light-bearer for MS techs has left their highly used Notes/Domino based KM System for Sharepoint Portal. Business reasons were not superior technology (infact they let go many useful features) but to create a case-study and strategic partnership with MS.
The system was suppose to go live globally around Sep 04; last I heard it should be in July 05. (So might be still tacking problems)
2. The second case, is my present firm, which was feed the earlier case study. Though its very early for me to comment on this one. But we are still figuring out LWF (workflow) migration strategy.
- 5
Mike M http://www.marusin.com | 7/11/2005 9:20:30 AM
Two of my biggest issues with SharePoint are things that have been bundled with Domino since the "olden days":
- Document Level Security
- Hide-When options to hide things a user shouldn't have access to/see (readers shouldn't see "edit" buttons, etc).
I have been a Domino developer for years and have recently been working with SharePoint for some of my clients and these are the first two annoyances I've noticed. :)
- 6
Bil Simser http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser | 7/11/2005 3:54:05 PM
I don't consider deleting my blog entry a breach of etiquette, I just felt I had lashed out at the person and not the story. As for the portal comment, I still stand by that as that's what I feel however I'm not on the product team so maybe they feel otherwise. Even though I'm an MVP, my opinions do not reflect those of Microsoft at all.
- 7
Subhan http://slate.blogspirit.com | 7/11/2005 10:53:45 PM
In agreement with #5. Sharepoint has a primitive Read/Write/Manager access model. Read -> You can read all the docs in the Site, Write -> You can post any form, Manager -> You can delete any data. If you have write access you automatically have Read to all docs.
So if you wanna post a Quiz/Survey, you can tamper with the URL, get to the View Responses/Graphical Responses, check-out wat others have responded and then answer the Quiz. :)
Though there might be work arounds to get thru this and I am still experimenting.
If I am informed correctly, MS has recently revised it's decision to discontinue Public Folders in E12. Maybe because of their customers not moving to SharePoint. This is no suprise as I can't see a reasonable migration path today.Seems like it will not be before the Longhorn version of SharePoint (2007 ?) that this will improve.