Why Settle for SharePoint?

Microsoft makes billions of dollars from SharePoint. It's their premier revenue generator at this stage. The reason has broadly speaking to do with Microsoft's sheer size, clearly, and the prevalence of their operating system and office suite, particularly in small and medium businesses. Nevertheless something else is going on here: IT is settling for less than it deserves.

What started as an attempt to kill Lotus Notes has morphed into this everything-nevertheless-the-kitchen-sink platform. First it was a portal with some collaboration and content management features meant to get people to use more Microsoft Office. At that time Microsoft started adding more and more "ECM" features — Records Management, Web Content Management, Search, BPM and Forms. At some point the platform grew to include not just enterprise content management yet Business Intelligence, peer-to-peer and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).

Call to action for all IT architects

So this is a call to action for all IT architects and managers: Don't settle for one-size fits all. You deserve better. Assemble a best-of-breed solution from open source elements that implement industry standards. You'll save money, you'll keep your developers happy, and you'll be able to respond more nimbly to the needs of the business.

Microsoft makes billions of dollars from SharePoint. It's their premier revenue generator at this stage. The reason has normally to do with Microsoft's sheer size, clearly, and the prevalence of their operating system and office suite, particularly in small and medium businesses. Nevertheless something else is going on here: IT is settling for less than it deserves.

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