Is SharePoint 2010 Relevant?
I received this in my email box this morning. It’s something I’ve been thinking about since the October SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas.
What is the value of learning, or following, SharePoint 2010 at this stage of the game? Who is this tidal wave of information being pushed at and is it relevant in its current state? Here’s the email I received:
“I recently had an email discussion with some of the guys I met at the Best Practices Conference last August about what conferences we would be attending this year. In the course of the email trail the subject of the various conference agendas came up and all 5 of us felt like all the conferences that had an agenda posted at that time were very heavily slanted towards the 2010 product.
While I certainly understand that it poses problems for some of us (and probably a lot of other people out there in the field as well). I work in an environment that probably won’t even consider moving to 2010 before the 2nd half of 2012 at the very earliest. The other guys in the discussion were all in a similar boat. The dilemma we all face is how do we justify the cost of attendance and travel to a conference that focuses on a technology we are not planning to adopt any time in the near future.
“I know you speak at a lot of SharePoint Saturday Events as well as attend and speak at a lot of the conferences. Are you hearing any concerns from attendees about the push towards 2010? Are the conference organizers taking the situation I describe into consideration when planning their events? What are the thoughts of other potential attendees in the community?”
I’ve stated it publically and I’ll say it again here: I think that most people should keep their head down and concentrate on the 2007 environment. Most rollouts won’t happen at least for a couple more years. Getting distracted with all the noise on 2010 is just that, a distraction.
I’ve caught fire for this opinion, but I’m standing firm: SharePoint 2010 will not be relevant for most people for at least two, if not three years… and you can quote me on that.
Mark Miller
Founder and Editor
EndUserSharePoint.com
on
Hi Mark,
That’s a really interesting perspective, I’ve heard you mention it before. I’m wondering though, do you think that this is different for the various sectors out there, or does this apply to most/all of them?
Or are you speaking purely from an upgrade perspective? I find that with any new clients that come on board with us, we recommend 2010 and not 2007, do you think 2007 should still be the recommendation? If so, why?
Really interested in your feedback,
Shereen
Shereen,
Agreed from a new customer aspect. If SharePoint is currently not in-house, a recommendation of 2010 after SP1 is probably a good thing. However, my argument is that the buzz about 2010 is so strong in the SharePoint ‘geek’ community, it’s becoming distracting to those Power Users and Site Managers who are depending upon us to help with their 2007 implementations.
2007 is not going away anytime soon. It still needs our support. It still needs our community attention.
Relevant is an interesting way to phrase it. I think it is relevant, but that doesn’t mean a company is justified in jumping on the product immediately.
From a training perspective I see 2 sides to this. First you need to be aware of the next versions capabilities and short comings to properly design an upgradable environment. Second I feel that training is normally geared to people who are new to a certain technology, so naturally there are more people out there who lack in SharePoint 2010 knowledge than 2007.
I agree with, most customers will wait for SP1 to arrive before rolling out SP2010.. I’ve seen it with 2007, there were a lot of ‘bugs’ with the new features that shipped with 2007 (anybody familiar with Content Deployment pre-SP1/Infrastructure update?) and were fixed in a later stage, yet a lot of customers were faced with these problems.
Despite the fact I’d love to work on the new bits.. I’m not expecting to do this for the next couple of years..
Chris makes a good point when looking at the issue from a training perspective. However, the email focuses primarily on conferences which a lot of people don’t view as truly being “training”.
IMHO a conference is about insight into capabilities or how to handle specific situations. Things that can be addressed in a one hour session. Training (i.e. content delivered by MindSharp, Combined Knowledge, etc…) is more like something that is broader in scope and delivered over the course of a couple of days.
That being said, it is my feeling that some conference organizers are going to hurth themselves in the long run if they insist on focusing primarily on 2010 content. It will become increasingly difficult for those individuals supporting 2007 environments to justify the cost of attendance and travel to a conference that only has a few sessions dedicated to the product they support.
It’s what we were saying all along when we put together SPTechCon for San Francisco. Many consultants want to drive the discussion toward 2010 because they will get more engagements upgrading folks than they will from organizations standing pat on 2007. And of course, Microsoft will sell more licenses moving people to 2010. There always seems to be a disconnect between where the big software vendors and their partners want organizations to be, and where those organizations really are. That said, out of 72 classes at SPTechCon, I would estimate that just about half were geared to 2007, and half to 2010. interestingly, we got feedback from folks who said there was too much on 2007, and from others who said there was too much on 2010. And, as we begin planning for October’s SPTechCon in Boston, we will try to more clearly delineate which classes are focused on which version of the software.
Thanks Dave. To know that you are aware of the considerations of the audience is good to know. I look forward to participating again in Boston. Count me in for the 2007 sessions. — Mark
I see this one playing out at SharePoint Saturday Round tables for the rest of the year.
i was glad to see this post. My company just announced that its selected platform to rebuild its intranet will be SP 2010.
We run 2007 here and (yikes!) 2003 in other branches. I was just about to ask “What should I be doing/reading/learing to prepare for this change?” , but it sounds like even go-getter companies (which mine isn’t) won’t be upgrading soon.
Is there *any* relevant transtional information that would be good to start reading now, or is it pointless to accumulate information that I’ll just have to re-learn when the time comes?
For those that are well versed in 2007, it’s a good opportunity to ramp up on 2010 and stay on the edge of what’s going on especially consultants and experts.
Customers have a different consideration. They are budgeting for existing or new. With upcoming projects they should look at what training they’ll need for the next 6 months to a year. With that in mind, I do think we’ll see a split and it’s very easy to see why many should continue to focus on 2007 and other 2010. 2010 is hot with those of us trying to ramp up and share what we’re learning.
I did attempt to address a similar question I get over and over again which is planning for new projects… do I stay or do I go?
To those where the answer is go. The answer is 2010 is extremely relevant and has been since Nov especially for planning and upgrade. The answer will be different and “it depends” is extremely applicable.
Joel
SharePoint Saturdays have been supported by a number of excellent vendors who expect sales to go up with a new release. Presenters often have a background as trainers or authors who also hope to demonstrate their abilities with the next gen technology. However, my concern with 2010 is more “tell me how not to screw up my migration” which I’ll get to someday. My day to day concerns are all 2007. I’d guess the coordinator’s from recent Saturday events can answer accurately, but I’ve been in the 2007 rooms and they have been packed. I have enjoyed seeing some of the great presenters from earlier shows, but when a presentation is 2010 centric, I have to find something relevant to my company. And then see them at a SharePint.
Hi Mark,
I completely agree with you.
From an end user/ power user prospective, SP2010 is that ‘cool’ product that everyone gets excited about and read about in about every SP related blog but is also somewhat of an abstraction.
I will probably not use it for 2 years, maybe more.
I am lucky enough to be one of the only person among my coworkers to have Office 2007 and my company has been using MOSS 2007 for ‘only’ 15 months.
May I point out (and this is not a criticism, I am an avid EUSP reader and fan) that, out of the 19 recordings from the SP Saturday EMEA, 12 are directly adressing SP2010 topics. I was kind of bummed about that…
Greg
I agree with you Mark, SP2010 looks like it is going to be a great product, but there are going to be some large hurdles to overcome before many existing WSS/MOSS 2007 environments move to 2010 — one hurdle is the new hardware requirements. In most environments, this means at minimum a move to a new server operating system and/or migration of existing servers to new hardware. Even for smaller IT shops this can be a significant undertaking, not to mention large enterprises with global SharePoint implementations.
The only place that I’m seeing any interest in 2010 right now are organizations that currently do not have a SharePoint implementation of any kind. I agree with Greg that even though there are some great things coming with 2010, it is getting a little frustrating that more and more blogs are turning their focus away from existing SharePoint users to 2010. It is getting very difficult to justify large conferences, especially if there is little offerred for 2007 users.
Whenever there is a major revision of any product, in this case SharePoint 2010, there is a period of time when consultants providing services around the platform get pinched a bit. Our clients (existing and potential) expect us to be experts in both platforms.
While my personal opinion of SharePoint 2010 reflects Mark Miller’s stated opinion (and, for the record, I truly appreciate Mark standing by his opinion), the reality is that often our clients make choices based on factors outside of our informed opinion. Not having knowledge and experience with SharePoint 2010 diminishes our reputations as SharePoint experts in the eyes of our client.
Given that there is a wealth of published material on SharePoint 2007 that is available at EUSP and countless other sources, I have no issue with the emergence of SharePoint 2010-centric content on SharePoint Saturdays and other sources.
Here is my 2 cents; working for the military is very interesting when it comes to SharePoint. I work for the Army Medical Department and WSS 3.0 is still in the ‘Testing’ phase for some hospitals. While some hospitals have moved to MOSS I don’t see upgrading to SharePoint 2010 for 3 to 4 years (for we are lucky). Having attended some conferences and other training, SharePoint still misses the ‘mark’ for Department of Defense use. As I mention before in other blogs and conferences and training, Microsoft needs to ask the age old question, “How do you do your work and this is what SharePoint can do for you.” Every branch of service has its own needs and requirements. Here is an example: We are using MOSS for our Intranet and I am the ‘only’ person to work with SharePoint. I’m the System Admin to the SharePoint Trainer and we have a hospital staff of 4,000 plus. There are other hospitals under the same command with 2 or more SharePoint Admins and still using WSS 3.0. Please listen to what is going on ‘real’ world and don’t forget not every company has 2010.
1. MOSS 07 is not going anywhere for at least the next 16 months. It is well entrenched and CTOs need more ROI out of the platform. Particularly considering the depleted coffers resulting from the recent economic downturn.
2. However there’s a tremendous groundswell of interest around the SP 2010 product from existing SharePoint users, ISVs and developers. I think you will see the SharePoint community grow 3 fold as a result of this release. There are folks clamoring to get on the SharePoint bus and 2010 is their ticket.
3. Self-serving or not, hosted SharePoint will allow folks to upgrade faster and with less pain. And I would dare say an unbiased cost analysis of hard and soft costs will yield surprising results. Most CTOs do not have a solid grasp of SharePoint’s true cost when it is on-premise. I suggest taking a look at Russ Edelman’s article in CIO Magazine: How to Determine the True Cost of SharePoint.
http://www.cio.com/article/496330/How_to_Determine_the_True_Cost_of_Microsoft_SharePoint
Mark, I just mentioned SP 2010 and upgradability issues on my blog yesterday. What I said echoes Chris Schwab’s comment: “you need to be aware of the next versions capabilities and short comings to properly design an upgradable environment”. A couple years is not that far.
That said, most people we talk to are users whose may concern is to run a business, not to design applications. And for these ones worrying about SP 2010 is certainly far too early.
Is it possible that everyone is correct? Just like the SharePoint platform itself is used differently by organization for many features perhaps there is no “right” answer here. There will be some organizations which “migrate” and some which don’t.
MS has made it clear that SharePoint is one of four foundations which can be used to collaborate and build applications. You now have WPF, WCF, WWF and WSF (Windows SharePoint Foundation) and it is clear the SharePoint Foundation is a keystone in the MS stack from this point forward.
If your company is not “deploying” SharePoint you may see pockets of WSF in your organization sooner than you think. What does “deploy 2010” mean? Are you suggesting your company will not replace its existing WCM, ECM or BI 2007 implementation with 2010 anytime soon? I can see this being the case for many companies.
This said vendors will have applications built with the SharePoint foundation and you may choose to use the “free” version where appropriate. You may build apps, collaborate or store documents using WSF. The big question is what vendor will step up and offer integration? Who will write code allowing you to use a “small” 2010 farm to publish Managed Metadata to your SharePoint 2007 farms? Who will publish service apps for Search, and other applications which can be consumed by your SharePoint 2007 farm?
Unfortunately some conferences may choose to only focus on the new. This may be an oversight in my opinion. At minimum sessions should include topics on integration between 2007 and 2010. Surely these integration topics will be covered in upcoming administration book releases by MVP’s and the community.
You might also consider that conferences tend to be forward looking and focus on new technology. This is true of all conferences made of experts. You wouldn’t go to a medical conference on cancer prevention and expect to learn about previous versions of medicines or technology.
Training is becoming a commodity; there will be plenty of training for both versions of the product. In business if there are dollars involved or a “market” the need will be filled.
I truly find peace knowing that there are few “right” answers when it comes to SharePoint questions. I love the fact that I can answer every question with; “It depends”.
What is my answer to your email? It depends!
Paul S.
f I had my way, all current SharePoint 2007 installations, knowledge, and tools would be abolished and replaced with SharePoint 2010 equivalents. The world would be much better off that way. Read more at http://www.sharepointmadscientist.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=52
I look after our SharePoint 2007 installation (<100 users) and we will be moving to 2010 pretty quickly. Our issue was we had a poor initial 2007 installation by a SharePoint consultancy here in the UK which killed off any initial enthusiasm about the product; it became a bit of an internal joke.
2010 will give us an opportunity to relaunch SharePoint into the company. It looks different enough for users to see it as a new system (and how it looks is always a big factor with non-technical users). I know going ahead with a pre-sp1 Microsoft product is always risky but hey, we're rolling out Windows 7 at the moment so why not?!
I find this an interesting viewpoint. We are a big retail chain and we use SharePoint 2007 extensively. We are currently in the process of reviewing SharePoint 2010, and in our case we are planning rollout within 2 weeks of it’s release across a 1500 users.
The new features of SharePoint 2010 makes it the ideal solution for a lot of issues we have been having and for certain developments not being done on SharePoint 2007. We have done testing and everything in our current environment will work once we move across, and for us at least, there is no valid reason to wait.
From a BI perspective, every tool we need is in SharePoint 2010, and therefore the motivation from management has been to implement and rollout. I could not be happier with this decision, since getting my developers to work with 2007 was a huge issue, with 2010 they have actually enjoyed developing for SharePoint.
First, let me just state a few things about what my organization currently has in production:
Multiple instances of SQL2000 and 2005 (nothing of 2008 yet).
Multiple instances of WSS 3.0 (no MOSS at all)
Decommissioned an instance of SPS2003 about 1 month ago (finally)
All prodcuction servers are running Win2k3R2 (32 bit) – approx 90 physical, 10 VM (nothing server 2k8, nothing 64bit)
Exchange 2003
Office 2k7
WinXP client machines (95%)
Win Vista (3%)
Win7 (2%) – plan is to roll out Win7 to all client machines (skipping over Vista)
Approx 5k-8k users (depending on time of year – we’re a college)
Based on the above, yes – we are behind the times, but its also the norm when it comes to State ran organizations. We just dont always have the budget to upgrade when we want, and planning can be a bit of a nightmare when trying to determine the best approach and “timing” to roll out new tech for our users. Some of our more “Grandiose” ideas have fell to the wayside simply because of the culture we have to deal with…”My job would be so much nicer if it wasn’t for the people I have to deal with”, said the customer service rep. Everything is committee-based (there was even a committe formed once, to investigate the over-use of committess – I kid you not), so most things get tied up in red-tape for the sole purpose of not “wanting” to give an answer (”If I ignore it, then maybe it will just go away”).
Being the SharePoint Evangelist that I am within my org, I’ve ran “Welcome back” sessions at the beginning of the new school year with large groups of my users, that afterwhich, they were so ramped up with the idea of what “could” be done within SharePoint, they couldn’t wait to start using it. But then the waiting began…the committes started to form…the “Web Task Force” (the name implies “Commandos with iPads”, but in reality was nothing more than a “Bureaucratic Round-File”…hours of my life that I’ll never get back)…the “We’ll have to find a budget for this” promises that became the “Sorry…we just couldn’t find the funds…” boilerplate statements. It pained me to have to let down my users simply because those above me could not, or would not commit… or try and find a way.
For 2010 though, we’re going to take a different approach. We already had the budget approval for MOSS, just not the support to roll it out yet. So we’re going to take the budget and apply it towards 2010 and take our time in its development and implementation. We already have some users ready to start using it internally for their offices and groups, so we’ll take the phased approach to slowly integrate in some of our existing services then focus on what problems SP can address and see how to use it meet those needs.
[From Mark Miller]
“2007 is not going away anytime soon. It still needs our support. It still needs our community attention.”
I couldn’t agree more…especially with 2010 still just being a “beta” product. In my organization, we’re currently about 1 month past our SPS2003 decommission…meaning up until 30 days ago, we were still using SharePoint 2003!!!. It pains me to think that we were still using it for so long, but in a state-ran organization such as mine, change is often slow to happen and we wind up supporting multiple versions of products simultaneously (see above for what we have for SQL alone). Although we wont ever have an instance of MOSS, our instances of WSS 3.0 will still need support for many years to come.
[From Chris Quick]
“The only place that I’m seeing any interest in 2010 right now are organizations that currently do not have a SharePoint implementation of any kind.”
I’d like to add to this that it also depends on the purpose of your implementation that may dictate whether or not to look at 2007 or 2010. In my org, we have 2 production instances of WSS3.0, but no MOSS. I’ve spent the better part of the past year moving everything off of 2003 (our previous “failed” attempt at an Intranet solution) with the intent of restructuring and rebuilding a new Intranet in MOSS, but with the lack of buy-in in the previous attempt, our plan is to take things slow and work on developing things within 2010 instead (1-2 year plan for rollout). I’ll be bringing up an instance of 2010 internally for my team for testing and proof-of-concept applications for our portal ideas, but for the masses it will still be some time before they see anything “live” (aside from select groups with whom we’ll be phasing certain aspects of 2010 into their work environments). We have no plans of upgrading our instances of WSS either…if it aint broke, dont fix it…no reason to needlessly upgrade if things do exactly what is needed now (maybe 3-5 years down the road, but not any time in the immediate future).
[From Rob LaMear]
“MOSS 07 is not going anywhere for at least the next 16 months”
Have I mentioned that we just decommissioned our SPS2003 instance…and that we’re still using SQL2000? :)
MOSS will most likely be good to go for at least another 3 years, if not more. Its fine to start thinking about 2010, as many are, and yes I do agree that the community will grow even more with this latest version, but it will still be some time before it is ready for primetime. I myself will be working with it very soon (just got my new 64bit Dev machine at work yesterday – it was like Christmas!!), but production-level will still be some time off. Also, I do agree that “Hosted” environments will get a nice boon from this as well. With the new requirements on servers for this version, hosted and “Clouds” will really take off with new users…heck, we may even look into it as well (refer back to the beginning of this comment for what we currently have server-wise).
- Dessie
Moving on to SP2010 from MOSS is not a trivial task.
The sheer volume of information needed before you can start designing SP2010 farms makes it a task that needs thorough preparation. Hopefully pushing as much information out as soon as possible will mean that both consultants and customers realizes this.
As with the current IE6 discussion, I do realize that there are good reasons both to upgrade and to stay on the old platform, but one of the consequences for the company that still runs IE6 and still runs SharePoint 2003 is that they should expect less support from the community and from official sources like conferences.
As Paul and others mention, if you pay the buck you will be able to get training (probably even SP 2001 training if you pay enough ;-) but for conferences that has a broader target that training I would be surprised to see SP2007 sessions and it would have to be a really good topic and presenter for me to attend that session.
As an international SharePoint consultant since the beta and release of the 2001 product, I can assure you that the 2010 upgrade and installation scenario will be the usual consulting gold mine.
Despite the money involved, I have repeatedly stated that SP2010 must surface an impressive value add to the consumer to justify its purchase. I don’t care if behind the curtains SharePoint 2010 gives every IT person a free trip to Disneyland, there MUST be a recognizable benefit that offers a large productivity and/or competitive edge to the enterprise.
Michael – You’re speaking my language. Keep it up. Thanks. — Mark
Mark,
Good way to start a discussion, but you may find business harder if you don’t continue to learn about 2010 today. Many organizations still haven’t upgraded from 2003, but enough new orgs started with 2007 or added 2007 that it far outweighs the former. You may find the same with 2010.
SharePoint 2010 isn’t another case of Vista. 2010 will be a necessary upgrade for orgnizations who need to capitalize on the social web skills of their employees.
For every company like Mike’s that doesn’t plan to upgrade soon, there are 100 that don’t even have 2007 yet. When those 100 get 2010, Mike’s company will be at a competitve disadvantage and will have to play catchup and may need to adjust their upgrade plans quickly.
Tom
Tom,
There are a few assumptions in your reply that I challenge:
> 2010 will be a necessary upgrade for organizations who need to capitalize on the social web skills of their employees.
The assumption there is that companies WANT to enable social media within their environment. I will argue that most will not, to the point of implementing policies against its use. I’ll add this discussion to the list of SharePointHardball.com topics I’m starting to build. You can see the first one here: SharePoint Hardball: IE6.
> Mike’s company will be at a competitve disadvantage
The bulk of the SharePoint Community are not consultants who are afraid of falling behind and “playing catchup”. It is people in the trenches who are trying to use their existing tools to get their work done. Consultants muddy the water by continually pushing an unneeded upgrade to a majority of the EndUserSharePoint.com audience, where that knowledge is not relevant to what they are doing.
Hi Mark,
Great discussion. I love how you continue to risk stating your opinion to help yourself learn and grow. However, to make a statement against the desirability of social media in the text of a blog comment is ironic.
Doesn’t commenting on this blog post ad more value to your business than exchanging emails with me, Mark? This type of communication is becoming very common and a lot of orginizations want to take advantage of tools like this to talk their customers. Employess are becoming familiar with this kind of communication, but can’t use it in their place of work.
Isn’t it ironic that you host a website entierly about SharePoint on a PHP application? Wordpress is a great app, but if you could apply the tools you teach about to your public website, you might be more efficient and have a better brand message to boot.
Tom
Tom,
> to make a statement against the desirability of social media in the text of a blog comment is ironic.
Not in the least. I have a public blog, run by me, to state my opinions. It is not a corporate blog that is trying to maintain internal privacy standards and work ethics based upon company policy. You’re trying to change the discussion, and I won’t bite.
> Isn’t it ironic that you host a website entierly about SharePoint on a PHP application?
No, not at all. I have chosen the best platform for getting out my message. Many, MANY SharePoint related sites are run on external blog software. I think it’s disingenuos of you to try and bring this site down a notch by “calling out” my use of software and technology. I don’t have to prove my belief in SharePoint to anyone. As Heather Solomon stated earlier this week on her blog, “… we don’t use SharePoint for the sake of using it. I believe in honest assessment of which tool is the best for your needs.”.
> apply the tools you teach about to your public website, you might be more efficient and have a better brand message to boot.
And now you’re trying to tell me how to run my business and market it. This site has become what it is because of the message it puts out, not because of the software it’s run on.
Tom,
You make a good point regarding the use of the social aspects of SharePoint. However, that being said I think if you took a poll you would find that a great many companies do not intend to leverage those capabilities and will in fact prohibit, or heavily regulate, their use because of the misconception, right or wrong, that allowing employees to use anything of a “Social” nature would amount to those employees wasting time.
I would say that those perceptions are based on companies experience with their employees and Facebook. I know that at my former employer they eventually had to block Facebook because the web logs were showing that an inordinate number of employees were spending more time there than actually doing their jobs.
That simple case alone resulted in a long heated debate about implementing blogs, wikis and my sites in that particular environment and I can see that happening in many, many other environments as well.
What may well end up happening is that companies may allow the implementation of the social tools built into SharePoint but they will be so tightly regulated that people will use them sparingly if at all.
Jay,
By it’s nature SharePoint is a social tool. The main goal of the tool is collboration and communication. An orginzation that attempts to limit the social aspect of the platform doesn’t understand how to use it.
What do you do with the collaboration tool that doesn’t invlolve interaction with another person?
Beyond that, there is a bigger issue with your scenario which I’ve heard before. I’m not surprised your story is about a former employer. The company lost your trust when you were told you couldn’t be trusted to use your time productively.
Tom
Mark,
You have a great website. Your business provides a great value to the community. I’d love to learn from your business model, not tear it down. SharePoint 2010 isn’t relevant, yet it is. It will be more relevant to you when more people need you to teach them how to use it and it increases your business. In the mean time, your readers care enough about it to make it relevant to you by discussing it with you.
Tom
Mark, let me start with the obligatory comment thanking you for this site and all that you do. I run into people all the time who have utilized your site before I even mention it – kudos.
This is a good conversation. I must say that I’m surprised at how hard your stance is against the relevance of SP2010, and I’ve seen you mention the effect on your readers who still need to focus on 2007. Is that the main reason for the apparent edge that comes across in your comments? I know how text can skew the appearance of emotion, so that’s why I asked. I also ask, because I fear I may be one of those “consultants” you’re reference, because I am 100% focused on learning as much about – and teaching others what I learn – SharePoint 2010. For example…
- I focused SharePoint Saturday Denver solely on SP2010 and just had a few 2007 sessions to fill slots. That event was less than a month after the public release of Beta2
- The next SPSDenver will also be heavily SP2010 focused
- I co-lead the Colorado SPUG, and we have only done 2010-related sessions so far, but it’s not a requirement…it’s just where we’re focused
- The book I’m editing is for 2010 and will release the same time as RTM
- All of my after-hours effort is spent building, testing, learning, and answering questions about SP2010
- I spend an hour each week with an MS product team talking primarily about 2010 and planning features for version 15. The only 2007 topics are centered around things that don’t exist now but should exist in 15
- I have no 2007 presentations and only even consider creating 2010 ones. The closest to 2007 would be a migration/upgrade topic
- I have only added 2010-specific blog posts in the last 6 months
So, I am one of the folks you’re talking about, I think, but I can also say that I don’t go around telling my current or prospective clients they definitely need 2010. I still try to see what fits best and makes the most sense. For customers with nothing, I typically mention or suggest 2010 but with the caveat that it will be a brand new release with potential bugs. For those with 2007 already, my questions center around the size of their farm and amount of customizations, since those will factor into upgrade possibilities.
I do think you’re right about the fact that 2007 will remain dominant for a few years and that 2010 won’t become mainstream until 2012, but I think you should draw a line with those comments. Sure, 2010 may not be AS relevant as 2007 between now and the end of 2011, but there will still be a ton of businss. In my ase, I’m glad to hear that some top SP community members would rather not spend time learning 2010 right now, because that means I’ll have less competition when the early adopters start choosing SP2010. That’s a great scenario for me, because I’m spending tons of hours trying to become an “expert” in the new technology and want to be ready for clients who are looking for 2010 skills before it’s even in the market.
There will be business, and I will be ready. The less competition, the better. =)
Great topic. I think everyone agrees that SharePoint 2010 and SP Foundation 2010 will be fantastic. However, the support and training for both 2007 and 2010 will be required for many years; Especially for organizations on MOSS where a major investment will be required to migrate.I agree with the email that was sent to Mark. The events will need to be balanced over the next couple of years to support both platforms.
Rick
As a software architect and strategist I think I would be irresponsible if I ignored the new technologies entered around social computing.
Since some of my clients are using SharePoint to host external sites and build communities certainly there might be a marketing aspect which would include using social technologies to foster a user base and enhance communications. With these external SharePoint projects I find it much, much easier to clearly articulate why clients need to use the social components of SharePoint.
It is a little more challenging for me to depict the evolution of software from enterprise based to social based inside the corporate firewall. This is complicated even more when I discover that enterprise computing concepts have to coexist with social computing. Be clear I DO see the need for both to exist for many, many organizations.
It is the blend of these two concepts which is still a mystery to many. How can they exist? How can IT maintain a top down control of structured content (taxonomy) while at the same time fostering a bottom up unstructured approach to information (folksonomy)? Using SharePoint 2010 the Managed Metadata store supports this model via structure and unstructured terms sets. These term sets can be enforced for structured content and not for unstructured. Certainly many companies will benefit from the ability to have individuals tag and rate content in a structured way.
I like to compare the “Google vs. Facebook” approach to finding content. A search engine that uses algorithms to categorize and find content (Fast, Google, SharePoint Search) can be useful when searching for terms and patterns.
In other applications like Facebook and Twitter when we allow users or friends with similar interests to tag or rate content as a community the information we find tends to be a little more specific or meaningful. I submit that both the Google and Facebook approach are needed by many organizations and for many these technologies will be easiest to implement using SharePoint 2010.
The same questions and concerns regarding social computing were raised when companies had to decide whether to allow employees access to the internet. Many feared that countless hours would be wasted by people shopping, betting on football, etc.
Certainly in some companies this can be an issue however the productivity gains of allowing internet access to employees seems to have outweighed any loss of productivity. Many times these technologies have an inherent way of being self policing in addition they can be monitored with software.
My blog doesn’t run on SharePoint. When SharePoint 2007 first was released it was ahead of it’s time to include blog’s and Wiki’s with ECM and WCM. The blogging features were quickly leapfrogged and I decided not to use the software for a public facing blog site. That said I am excited to deploy my blog site using 2010 in the next months. With the 2010 version the platform has all the features then I need for hosting a rich community and public blog.
That’s all I have for now. I still insist there is no right answer and “It depends”.
Paul S.
Sharepoint 2010 has as much relevancy as Sharepoint 2007 in the market right now.
I think that focusing content to 2010 only at conventions and events has its place. A convention like Mix or Teched for example which are to showcase the latest and greatest are fine for 2010 content. Sharepoint Saturday, SPTechCon, Techmentor and others have always been for those people that are in the trenches everyday, to provide practical advice to apply the day you get back to work, not 1 year from then. So for SPSaturday for example to focus only on 2010 content is silly. I’ll take my experience for example at SPSNYC this January.
I thought that the content was great, I learned a lot, but it was nothing I could say that I was using the monday I got back, except actually for Mark Miller’s session because it was version neutral. Now the previous times I attended, I immediately used the things I learned and questions I asked that monday that I got back. SPS Boston that just passed, I saw some events online and I will use that info tommorow morning. That’s the true value of attending these events or paying to go to the large conferences, getting relevant information to use now.
I can tell you that for many Small to Medium size companies, MOSS 2007 was their first dive into Sharepoint and it happened within the last 3-4 years which was when Sharepoint became the “Hot” product. They are still dealing with many other upgrades like workstations and Servers and won’t move to SP2010 quickly. The ones that have not started Sharepoint implementations will most likely forgo 2007 and go to 2010.
Right now the information that most people in the trenches are looking for is migration information and how to move their farms from one version to another without screwing anything up. Social media content is the current “hot” trend in the enterprise, but most companies are shying away from it because it is bitting them in the butt with privacy issues, so saying that you can run twitter/facebook like functions in sharepoint 2010 isn’t a big selling point. Just ask anyone in the Mark Rackley session of SPSBoston about how his twitter discussion went, and how many of the people in his session had it or what they thought about it.
I think all the experts in Sharepoint should balance themselves between versions right now because a lot of them will turn some of their followers away not because their information is not good , but it is not relevant to their everyday professional lives. You can defenitly measure your user base by the questions that we the followers ask and just guide yourselves by that. You have to be careful that all you see is Sharepoint because that’s what you do, but that is not all that your clients and IT departments see or do.
I asked some similar questions back in November of last year in my posts Too Soon for SharePoint 2010? and Too Soon for SharePoint 2010? – Part Deux.
The more I’ve seen about SP2010 the less I feel, even as a consultant, that I need to rush into understanding it fully. There’s plenty more life in SP2007 as a technology that most organizations haven’t even thought about yet. We also have new tools like jQuery which can breathe new life into long-lived SP2007 installations without much expense other then the development.
But it isn’t about the technology. The bottom line is now and *always* will be: “What business problems are we trying to solve and what technology (if any) is the right one to enable us to do it well?” That’s how I approach any problem my clients talk to me about. (I’ll even recommend using note cards if it solves the problem well and cheaply.) Sometimes it isn’t even SharePoint as a technology that turns out to be the right answer, either. I’d rather give my clients the best answer to meet their business requirements and walk away from some potential, falsely earned $$$.
So is SharePoint 2010 relevant? As many others have said in the comments above: it depends. There ought not to be any one size fits all answers.
M.
Wow…this topic has stirred up a lot of great points. Working within a large financial firm as I do it’s not about rushing to the newest product; it is more about what makes business sense. I tend to agree with Mark, do not see the need to rush out and upgrade to SharePoint 2010 unless it part of a larger picture. Such as your firms OS upgrade. Our current environment is Office 2003 with SharePoint 2007. I do not need to explain the limits of SharePoint 2007 with this model. It has been done over and over. But our 2010 roadmap is to skip Office 2007 and move right into Office 2010. Thus, we are planning to upgrade our SharePoint environment to SharePoint 2010. It’s the situation and business drivers that will make SharePoint 2010 relevant, not the product alone.
I think that the question “Is SharePoint 2010 Relevant?” is not enough consistent. The question should be “Do we need to upgrade to Sharepoint 2010?” or “Is Sharepoint 2010 a relevant platform for starting an Intranet/Extranet/Internet site?”
- For companies that want to start with Sharepoint, the 2010 release even the RTM is RELEVANT (I personaly started testing the 2007 Beta 2 and started building our Portal with the RTM without significant trouble)
- For companies that are using Sharepoint 2007 and wants to introduce ECM and Social Computing, If they have the budget and resources ;-) , it is RELEVANT
- For companies that have no strategies behind the “Collaboration” topics, all Sharepoint releases ARE NOT RELEVANT
I will try and be objective here…
As consultants (as many commentators here admit to being ;-) ) it is in our interest to push, prod and cajole clients towards the latest and greatest technologies. Being paid to learn is great for the bank balance, keeps our brain firing on all cylinders and gives us war stories to tell around the campfire on the SQL farm.
Reality is a little different.
There are distinct groupings of clients, we all know this – innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, etc. The bell curve speaks for itself.
Mapping users (or prospective users) onto this curve is trickier but still reasonably understood: Smaller firms (or innovating divisions and departments of larger firms) tend to be at the early end wheras mid-tier and enterprise firms tend to be later in the curve, especially when it comes to cross-organisation adoption of technology.
I see no reason why the behaviour of the client community will be any different with SharePoint 2010. Sure, there is lots of neat technical stuff that makes Sp2010 superior to MOSS but a message of “its better than the earlier version” means very little to the CIO who is having difficulty justifying the investment in the earlier version or in a new investment.
Facts from Microsoft are probably key in all of this. We have all seen the “sales” figures of MOSS – 200m+ licences, fastest selling product, etc. etc. but adoption is surprisingly low. Dependant on who you speak to you will hear between 15 and 50% of all “sold” MOSS licences are gathering dust on an EA or other licence agreement. The only beneficiary of these licences are Microsoft and the channel partners who sold the agreements – not the end users who would likely benefit from collaboration, communication, coordination, etc.
I know that we technical folk often get caught up in the euphoria of the cool new technology and lose sight of how companies actually make decisions about adopting new technology; Risk, ROI, TCO, are much harder to quantify than “its got a ribbon just like Office client” and assigning value to them in an organisational sense is for many companies a lengthy and protracted process taking years.
Don’t get me wrong. Everything I am seeing, experiencing and tinkering with in SP2010 is awesome, it is undeniably an improvement and clearly shows Microsoft’s commitment and evolutionary approach to product line development that will just get better as we move through Wave 15, 16, etc.
But is SharePoint relevant? Of course it is, but only to the 16% of companies in the leading edge of the bell curve – that leaves 84% of the potential SharePoint marketplace still open to the 2007 revision, right?
SharePoint 2010 is definately relevant. However, in the main companies are simply not geared to progressing with such a centralised technology right now.
The issue is not just budget, its architecturally where it would sit with with the other technologies in place, how it would integrate with the current platforms, the user acceptancy trail, and most critically, the actual planning required to make the leap.
Companies are still in the land of Office 2003, especially in the public sector; so making a leap to Office 14 and SharePoint 2010 is not a priority and may be seen as a jump too far.
In my view, SharePoint workers and clients should galvanise and futureproof their current 2007 environments. Sure, get 2010 out on test, create sandboxes but don’t jump in right now.
Because of the lack of IE6 support, and we have a ton of applications, we probably won’t be deploying SharePoint 2010 for 2 years.
For developers, of which I am one, there is a great advantage of SharePoint 2010. We are setting up a development environment with Visual Studio 2010, Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. The main advantage is being able to debug while in Visual Studio. The plan is to do proof of concepts and prototypes in this environment, then port to the SharePoint 2007 systems.
Regards, Daniel
I am rather shocked by the premise of this post. Given that this site is (supposedly) dedicated to the SharePoint end user, to assert that 2010 isn’t relevant seems to contradict its very purpose! I’ve been playing in 2010 since it became available in November, and have shown it to many users, covering all levels of expertise, and the concsensus is “wow, that makes things so much easier!”. From the ability to customize list forms with InfoPath in a native and integrated manner to hugely improved cross-browser capabilities, I am floored that we would even be having this conversation.
That said, I have seen this “debate” over and over again whenever a new version of [whatever] gets rolled out. For instance, when Visual Studio .NET (1.0) became the Big Thing, there was much moaning about how the old VS wasn’t being covered in the conferences anymore. If SP 2010 weren’t relevant, and if more people were planning to stick with 2007 (even past SP1, which I will argue against shortly), then why was the SPCON 2009 the BIGGEST SPCON ever (and by a huge margin)? Because people are curious, because we’ve done almost every practical workaround with 2007 we can, because people have pushed MOSS/WSS to the limits and want it to do so much more! *We* are why MS made the changes it did to come up with SP2010 – our feedback shaped much of how SP2003 became MOSS – so it’s relevance is HUGE, since so much of it came from *us*. It just seems strange to me want to hold back.
The other comments about waiting until after SP1: I find this rather misguided. The improvements in Sharepoint from RTM to SP1 were important, but in very few cases were they things our users were significantly impacted by (exception: workflow). I’m not saying that there weren’t things that needed serious fixing (deployment is a big one), but to not deploy b/c one wants to see what happens with SP1 seems a bit overly cautious. Also, MS has already demonstrated that it can roll out fixes on a qurterly basis, rolling them up into SPs annually. This wasn’t the case when MOSS was launched – the first major fixes took months before they became available. Some things this kind of “wait until SP1″ caution won’t fix are the very irritating habit of MS to fix one thing and break another, and then make us wait until the next patch cycle to get a repair (recall the recent License Expiration issue). Indeed, if one really wanted to be cautious, then one would always be a full release behind, resumably because most bugs would be worked out by the time the nexf version becomes available.
In any event, we are proceeding with our plans to upgrade to SP2010 on an aggressive schedule – we plan to plan, text, deploy in September and migrate sites immediately after that. It will be a difficult process, but the benefits to our users will be enormous. FWIW, we have over 19,000 employees, and while Sharepoint is immediately relevant to only a minority (roughly 6k), the fact that it was never “pushed” to the community (it was deployed and people asked for it – our marketing campaign was word-of-mouth only) demonstrates that people see that it fills an immediate need, and this need is growing on a weekly basis. We are a large and complex institution, with Windows and Mac users co-existing and needing to collaborate. SP2010, although imperfect in the cross-browser category (can you say “ActiveX”?) singificantly improves our ability to service these populations better, and more easily respond to the increasingly complex user requests as they see the potential that MOSS has, but that SP2010 delivers on.
Thanks for the chance to sound off!