Upgrading to SharePoint 2010

No, I haven’t converted into a SharePoint fanboi.  I am merely acknowledging that it is here to stay, at least for two more versions.  Realizing that, my company has been doing quite a bit of SharePoint work in the past few years.  We have recently been looking at SP2010 and just upgraded a customer to the new version.

This dalliance with SharePoint has not gone unnoticed by some people in the local area.  I was asked to co-present with Wyn Van Devanter to the Washington, DC Web Content Mavens group on what web managers need to know before making the move from 2007 to 2010.

I thought I would share my slides and offer a few additional notes for people.  For the record, Wyn tackled the first part of the presentation and I handled the second portion.  We could probably each speak to the other half, but we each presented to our strengths.

SP2010 Overview and Upgrade Planning

There were several discussions that spun out of the presentation.  I think the actual discussion was a lot more valuable than the presentation.

  • Competition: There was a discussion on competition.  If you stick to the public website , there is a wide selection in the WCM/CMS market.  If you look at the Intranet usage, you are really looking at some of the newer Enterprise 2.0 players that offer a broader set of capabilities.  The legacy competition, eRoom and Lotus Notes, each have their own issues in regards to they’re being long-term players.
  • Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement of SharePoint.  SharePoint is not designed for WCM.  It has a lot of requirements that drive other license revenue for Microsoft.  It has complexities and requires a Microsoft platform and .NET expertise.  That said, if you have SharePoint (MOSS) 2007, you are likely going to be on SP2010 in the near future.
  • Future of SharePoint: We had a fun discussion on this.  It is my opinion that this version of SharePoint will mark the peak of SharePoint’s popularity.  The next version will likely ride on the coat tails of SP2010.  After that, I believe SharePoint will fall into the legacy category.  It is simply too big to innovate enough to maintain a lead over a long period of time.  Someone new is likely to come in and supplant them.  Of course, even with this estimate, that is some time away.
  • SharePoint for WCM, Really?: Yes really.  While I have stated in the past that maybe SharePoint is not ideal for WCM, it doesn’t change the fact that people still use it for that purpose (at least the 2007 version).  They will likely continue to do so in the future as SP2010 is better suited to WCM than MOSS 2007.  The question you want to ask if someone proposes SP2010 for your website it this: What are you using for your website? Oh, and get references. Plural.

There were more, but these are the ones that I remember clearly and that aren’t covered in the slides and notes.  Feel free to drop questions.

References

These are the links from the Reference slide of the presentation.  I am providing them here for easy reference.

Good luck.

2 thoughts on “Upgrading to SharePoint 2010”

  1. I am seriously reconsidering my company’s choice of Documentum. I think we are in over our heads. The features of Documentum seem to be too much for our users to comprehend and out IT staff do not have the proper experience or tools to get very much out of it.
    The license / support costs added to the resources to run it are greater than the value we get from it.
    If we had found an honest appraisal such as this prior chosing Documentum, I think we may have found SP fit us better.

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    • David, a lot to be said on this one. I think the thing that telling statement in your comment is, our IT staff do not have the proper experience or tools to get very much out of it. All large software will have this issue, including SharePoint. Mind you, if your IT shop is a .NET shop to start with, SP may be easier. If they aren’t MS-centric, then SP would be a tricky choice.

      Quite often the failure of a large initiative is not the fault of the technology, but the implementation plan, including the Change Management aspects. Documentum project do work much better when you bring experts in to do the work, but the same can be said of large-scale SharePoint implementations. Plus, when you through the governance side into the equation, that is something that needs definite attention with SharePoint.

      All said, not saying that Documentum was the right choice or that SharePoint wouldn’t have been better. The root causes of the failure of the project need to be investigated before you can determine what your next steps may be.

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