Major progress in SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint déjà-vu

Last week I attended Microsoft’s SharePoint conference in Las Vegas with over 7,000 delegates where they released the first details of SharePoint 2010 (“Twenty-ten”).  The amount of changes on the platform is impressive – this release is by far the most ambitious SharePoint release yet and there was a lot of excitement around it from most system integrators, customers and Microsoft employees themselves. Some analysts, like Gartner, speak very positively of the improvements whereas others, like CMS Watch, give a more balanced account of the situation.

When I asked other attendees what they considered the most useful potential of SharePoint 2010, answers ranged from improvements in areas such as taxonomy and folksonomy, to social computing features, Visual Studio, SharePoint Designer, search, document management and mobility services. Had I spoken to others, they might well have cited other features.

While SharePoint 2010 may still not be best of breed in any of these areas, despite the improvements, it is strong for the simple reason that it covers such a wide suite.  Though it is still early days, the demos at the conference seemed to more than indicate that the product has moved up a level or two.

Nonetheless, in some respects I can’t help but having a déjà-vu:

• First, let’s not forget SharePoint’s track record: MOSS 2007 promised a lot, too. Many people were delighted at the prospect of empowering business users with Excel services, Business Data Catalogue (renamed Business Connectivity Services in the 2010 version), offline synchronisation with Groove (renamed SharePoint Workspace), to name but a few. However, it turned out that migration was a pain, system integrators were too unfamiliar with the product, support of end-users took its toll and basic features were often not well worked out. Therefore it is common that project teams have ended up spending their time getting the basic things in order as well as doing business specific customisations – they simply haven’t gotten around to leveraging the advanced features of MOSS 2007 yet.
• Second, SharePoint project managers have had to realise that MOSS 2007 is a highly complex product. In our communities of practice, members often talk about the need to get in-depth knowledge of the platform, its concepts and logic, even if you are on the business side. In this respect, SharePoint 2010 has not gotten easier due to the sky-high ambitions of Microsoft.

If you are already running SharePoint in your organisation, I strongly recommend that:

• you allow yourself plenty of time for analysis and testing when the public beta is released in November as well as when the final version comes out next year.
• you don’t underestimate the time needed for familiarisation with SharePoint 2010 at all levels: some terms have changed as I mentioned above and many new options and concepts have been introduced. Be ready to question your system integrator.
• you consider whether you want to be first mover on upgrading (think: early mover disadvantage)
  

SharePoint as a product has certainly matured its feature set but remember that the Devil’s in the detail – a key question is: to what extent can SharePoint 2010 deliver on its promise come implementation day?

At this early stage, I have not been able to get in touch with SharePoint 2010 pilot customers who have had real life experiences with the platform, although I repeatedly asked Microsoft whether they could help me out. If you have such experiences, please don’t hesitate to contact me – I would love to learn more.