I've been dying to tackle this topic for a while now (sorry, no pun was intended). It seems SharePoint has reached that point in its life where it has become so popular that people are starting to predict its demise. Granted, some of the SharePoint doomsday prophets may have had fair negative experiences on which they base their opinions, but does this really mean SharePoint is dying?
Just because you've had a bad experience using SharePoint doesn't necessarily mean the product is no good. In interaction with technology, human nature generally dictates that blame is placed at technology's door, regardless of where the fault really lies. Sure, sometimes the technology really is no good, but SharePoint is not that technology, having held the title of the fastest-growing product in Microsoft's history, says Simon Hepburn from bSOLVe.
Here are my top reasons why SharePoint is not going anywhere any time soon:
* Most businesses are still struggling to gain control of their information, something that, in my opinion, is now a necessity and no longer just a nice-to-have. When I look at businesses that haven't implemented SharePoint or similar technologies, it becomes obvious that these businesses struggle to operate efficiently in our fast-paced world. Continued exponential growth in the volume and speed of access to information and communication will force businesses to adopt information management solutions or face increasing difficulty.
* SharePoint is flexible, multi-talented and particularly well suited to help organisations start off at a cost-effective, simple departure point and, thereafter, continue to grow in maturity in terms of how they manage their information.
* SharePoint is becoming more powerful in base form and enables organisations to build effective business applications quickly, in a standardised way, without needing to resort to time-consuming customisation. This is crucial when needing to react quickly in order to remain competitive.
* SharePoint can be used as an on-premise, hybrid (a combination of on-premise and cloud) or cloud-based solution. This provides versatility to deliver solutions catering for unique environmental factors, such as geographic location, infrastructure, bandwidth and so forth.
* Social media in business will continue to grow, helping create knowledge as people add context to information through their social interaction with it. Yammer and SharePoint are a powerful combined force, and increased integration between the two will enable organisations to meet a wide spectrum of social needs.
* As consumer Web applications continue their prevalence, users are becoming increasingly used to personalised experiences. SharePoint's unparalleled integration with the rest of the Microsoft product stack (specifically Active Directory) enables solutions to be developed that use the rich user information available to present users with information specifically relevant to them.
* SharePoint has, over the last few years, achieved critical mass in terms of support, with a wealth of expertise and solutions offered by hundreds of thousands of vendors, analysts, consultants, designers, developers and project managers, who specialise in helping organisations extract maximum value from the product.
SharePoint is, in my opinion, in a powerful position at the moment, with the competition trailing. This, however, does not mean its supporters can become complacent. We need to remain focused on better understanding each new release of SharePoint and how it can be best used to address specific business needs and shape our industry.
As SharePoint grows, whether in the cloud or on-premise, one thing is for sure - it's not dying, but maturing, getting stronger, learning from its experiences, and getting better at what businesses need it to do.
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