SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint, what more is there to say?

Defending Enterprise Content Management

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So the other evening, I was out at a Web Content Mavens gathering, and someone asked me what I meant when I talked about ECM. This person had years of experience in Web Content Management and a few years working with a leading ECM provider before returning to their roots in WCM. His basic premise was that ECM was a marketing ploy cooked up by the vendors, analysts, and consultants out there and that there is no rational reason to force them all into one system.

This was, at the same time, one of the best, and most painful, conversations I have had in quite a while. On the one hand, it is good to have to occasional defend your convictions in order to make sure that they are still on solid ground. On the other hand, sometimes you want to hit your head into a wall when someone doesn’t get it. However, I can see why that opinion exists. The vendors and analysts are to blame.

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Co-Existence of SharePoint and ECM

A few weeks ago, I attended the AIIM seminar SharePoint meets ECM. When I registered, I received Doculabs’ White Paper, The Co-existence of Microsoft SharePoint and Advanced ECM Platforms: What You Need to Know. I hinted in my post about the event that I would write another post specifically addressed to this White Paper and I have finally gotten around to it.

Before I dive into the nitty-gritty details, I wanted to share an interesting observation. I started this blog to talk about things that were of interest to the EMC/Documentum crowd. That has expanded to encompass broader ECM issues such as standards. I think these topics are of interest to Documentum Architects, so it isn’t a reach. However, I’ve noticed a trend. Whenever I post on SharePoint, my hits jump way up. If I was just after hits, I’d just switch to SharePoint all the time. However, I expect this to be one of my last posts on the topic for a while as I have bigger fish to fry and I think I’ll have covered most of what I feel I need to cover for the short term.

It does make one think. I wonder how far my hit rate would jump if I included the name of a celebrity who is named after a French city? I’m not shameless enough to find out. Now on to the meat of the post…

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Provoking Jed on ECM 2.0

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I am worried. Worried that Jed will want to stop sharing pints with me. In a previous post, I said that the ECM community, users and organizations, need to define what makes up ECM 2.0. The definition should not be dependent on the definition of Web 2.0. Jed thinks I was calling him cynical. Not quite. I think Jed is too optimistic.

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ECM 2.0 using the Emergent Approach

Read an interesting post over at infovark. They say that the quickest way to achieve Enterprise 2.0 is to use an Emergent Approach. Essentially the idea is to make the technology accessible and less restrictive. This leads to viral acceptance pattern.

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AIIM Does SharePoint

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I spent a good part of my day today attending the SharePoint meets ECM seminar in Washington, DC. Organized by AIIM, this seminar was marketed as an introduction of MOSS into the world of ECM. So I went to see and hear stories of SharePoint either as a front-end to an ECM platform, or as a platform unto itself. The day didn’t start well.

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The ECM Magic Quadrant

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[Updated 11/10/2008 in order to make Gartner, Inc. happier, or at least less angry.]

[Edit: See the newer The Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management, 2008 write-up.]

The latest version [This is the now old 2007 version] came out a couple weeks ago. There has been, and will continue to be, some criticism of the Gartner, Inc. methodology. For now, let’s set it aside and look focus on what the report says. While it may not cover all the vendors, and may not define “leader” in the same manner as others, the information inside can still prove useful.

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Little Bit of Everything

Recently I’ve had more to say than time. So I am taking some time while I watch a little football to comment on various topics. If I get any real feedback on any of these thoughts, I’ll spin it off as a separate post later…

Dialog about Dialog

Well, my post about more dialog got some great reactions. However, dialog about having a dialog isn’t the target. Jesse Wilkins did make an interesting point that people will talk about what interests them. He is exactly right. That is why we need more ECM bloggers. That way we have enough diversity to talk about any ECM topic. Of course, one of my goals is to get everyone to care about ECM standards.

I was very pleased by what I saw. Now let’s see what happens over the next few months as real topics surface.

SharePoint is Lotus Notes?

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The ECM WSDL Discussion Leading to More

Tell everyone that you aren’t going to have time to write many entries and people start blogging about cool and interesting topics. Here is a quick rundown of the ECM WSDL analysis and my thoughts.

  • Our old buddy James McGovern started the whole thing off. He has apparently been sharing is frustration with his significant other and he wrote a post on the sad state of WSDLs in the ECM space. They are ugly and poorly written in his experience. Not having delved into any out of the box WSDLs in ECM, I can hardly argue. It wouldn’t shock me though. Hopefully the DFS ones will measure up better. James then starts to talk about the ECM systems having a standard Document Query Language and a common WSDL built upon that structure. Sounds good to me. In fact, it is a nice, positive contribution to the whole ECM standards issue.

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Fitting SharePoint into the ECM Picture

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Previously I compared eRoom and SharePoint. I noted several basic features, but didn’t really say that either was dramatically better than the other. They are both solid collaboration options. That is the key here. SharePoint measures up well to eRoom because they are both the same thing. They are Content Rich Applications that focus on Collaboration. They are not ECM solutions. eRoom admits it. SharePoint doesn’t.

SharePoint doesn’t appear to deliver on its promises with its out-of-the-box functionality. As was predicted and then observed, SharePoint requires multiple third party components and other customizations to achieve its true potential. The core problem that comes from this approach is managing components from multiple sources.

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Comparing Features of SharePoint and eRoom

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I have had access to a SharePoint installation for some time. I had promised readers of Ask Johnny! that I would do a more thorough comparison of eRoom and SharePoint a while back. I’ve had a chance to play with it some in order to form an initial impression of its capabilities. What follows is a comparison of the out-of-the-box functionality of eRoom and SharePoint.

Disclaimers: I have been working with eRoom for years, so have a natural bias. I am also still learning SharePoint, so I am sure I’ve missed some things. My client environment is a fully patched IE 6 running on Windows XP Professional with Office 2003 Professional. I also only had administrator rights to my site, not the installation as a whole.

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