SharePoint 15 Mar, 2005
Today I attended an “executive briefing”* on Microsoft’s SharePoint technology, with m’colleague John Barrow. This free seminar was hosted by Xpertise partnered by the Ashton Court group. This was quite interesting. To be frank, I can’t see my organisation taking on something like SharePoint, but nevertheless, anything that gives IBM and co. a kick can’t be bad. The interface is slick, the integration with Office 2003 (predictably) is very good, and the products tick a lot of boxes…
If you’re a Microsoft shop.
And you don’t use anyone else for your main IT investments (CRM, HR systems, content management, finances, etc.).
I must confess, when we covered the document library and Microsoft’s ridiculously proprietary “web-parts” (translation: portlets, MS-style), we didn’t have the guts to ask whether JSR-170 and JSR-168 compliance were on the table. I don’t imagine they are
So… an interesting set of technologies, and some good ideas in there. But nothing new. I can’t quite see what the Groove acquisition may mean for this area, beyond beefing up real-time working in Office, but then again, maybe that’s enough. Either way, will MS get enough done to seriously compete with the Workplace rich client I wonder? IBM, it’s over to you…
* - what does “executive” really mean in this context anyway? I’ve never understood that one. In the UK we have “executive homes”, “executive briefcases”, and now “executive briefings”… all aimed at senior manager types, i.e. the kind of people who actually “execute” naff-all… LOL.
:)Justin Freeman#
That said, from what I saw, and I stand corrected, there is the ability to connect to external databases - and web parts, although once again IMHO they have a horrible name, are pretty much pages that you can make do what you want. I don't like anything that uses Frontpage (I am bigoted towards that, yes) but there does seem to be a lot of good stuff that can be done, if you know how…
Overall - if you're using Office, then I think it's worth it just for that - we've implemented it internally, and it's already making the obvious benefits apparent.
PS - check out the Domino website, looking for the white paper they published - it's quite a good read.
PPS - here's">http://www.oneafrikan.com/archives/2005/03/10/how-to-deploy-sharepoint-portal-server-successfully/">here's my post FYI…Gareth Knight#
here">http://www.oneafrikan.com/archives/2005/03/10/how-to-deploy-sharepoint-portal-server-successfully/">here it isGareth Knight#
You're HTML doesn't work ;-)
What does "line breaks and links converted" actually say? ;-)
http://www.oneafrikan.com/archives/2005/03/10/how-to-deploy-sharepoint-portal-server-successfully/Gareth Knight#
I've been working with an ISV here in Calgary that runs both Sharepoint and WebSphere Portal Server. Here's the amazing thing about Sharepoint…it runs like an absolute speed demon on what IBM would consider to be an undersized box. The Sharepoint offering is running on a server with less than a gig of ram. WPS needs at least 4 gigs and Workplace, my god, needs 6-8 gigs. The funniest part of this little tale is that IBM is trying to tout Workplace as their 'Sharepoint buster'….
sad.Jamie McIlroy#
I would maintain that for the larger enterprise there’s more to consider, but for an MS-equipped small / medium business, IBM have their work cut out selling WSE, no matter how good it is (and it is good, I’m very impressed with WSE and Workplace 2.5).Ben Poole#