On May 9, we'll be conducting a webinar that will answer those questions and shed light on:

• How you should think about cloud options for your technology solutions
• Creating a mobile strategy that actually improves, rather than hinders, the customer brand experience
• Why implementing social tools without a proper business strategy can lead to disastrous results

You can register for this free webinar here. 

This webinar will be a preview of many of the topics that we will be discussing in depth at this year's info360 conference. In NYC on June 12-14, we'll be presenting a number of sessions including:

Social Workplace Market Overview 2012

Keynote: Consumerization of IT

Acronym Soup: ECM, WCM, CMS, WEM, CEM, DAM Dissected

The Right Way to Select Enterprise Collaboration Technology

DAM (Digital Asset Management) 101

Understanding the Marketing Technologist Toolkit

How to Negotiate the Right Price for Enterprise Software

The Advance Rates to the conference are available until May 4. We look forward to seeing many of you in New York!

Those are important topics, but I think an even bigger to-do for enterprises is to bring the right skill sets to bear. One key skill set to engage here is enterprise architecture.

If you examine the individual applications and platforms that employees access to complete work every day, you end up charting myriad of different systems in the typical enterprise. Some of these may be loosely aggregated within a portal, while others may not. The digital workplace concept, though, helpfully turns the table around by looking at it from the standpoint of the employee, rather than the enterprise. There's clearly an opportunity to apply well-known user experience methodologies -- such as User Centered Design (UCD) -- to improve your colleagues' effectiveness here.

But as you dig deeper into the employee digital experience, you'll discover more than just clunky, freestanding applications. You'll find:

• Information and process flows that span multiple systems
• Siloed data and content
• COTS vendors pushing their own separate mobile apps
• Diverse security and information access needs

Cataloging and understanding the business value of all these systems is the job of an enterprise architect. If you are trying to transform your digital workplace, then you'd do well to engage your enterprise architecture team -- you have one, right? -- in reconstructing the pieces into a greater whole.

Just remember that the point is not to re-arrange boxes and arrows to work your way forward from back-end systems to employees, but rather to re-arrange what happens on your colleagues' screens by working your way backwards. Is it too simple to say, UCD + EA = New Digital Workplace ?

If you're an enterprise architect tackling some of these issues, I'd love to hear from you.

Yet I remain a bit puzzled as to why the service has gone live at all, since it's clearly far from complete, usable, or reliable. The fact that it took four weeks to build what is essentially a simple web app is all well and good (even though it repeatedly delivered error pages in my test). But the real value that in this sort of application should derive from quality of the information it delivers. Currently the quality of that information is dismal.

From what I can gather 250 firms submitted information on a total of 1500 services they could deliver to the public sector, and all of them have gotten duly listed on the site.

That was the first red flag, and indeed further investigation reveals that as of now not one of those services has been tested or certified in any way at all; the claims have just been taken as verbatim. Even so, Cloudstore allows you to circumvent thorough tendering processes through the Official Journal of the European Community (OJEC), yet cannnot guarantee whatsoever the quality or fit of the services it promotes. 

I found:

• Services offered that run on products that do not meet Government standards
• A dominance of the usual major IT suppliers, claiming to offer almost anything (regardless of actual expertise)
• Many well known and experienced government IT suppliers missing
• Currently no details on what future accreditation will actually mean or demand of a supplier or service

This last point in particular concerns me deeply. Surely it seems fair to assume that "accredited" services and suppliers will have had their organization vetted, that they are viable and solvent, that they have experienced and reliable products and support, and that they meet technical standards.  Buyers will also want a solid understanding of these criteria and how they were met. Surely this is the basic due diligence that any buyer has to undertake? Yet I found no indication here of what accredited status will mean, how it will be administered, and how it will be checked and maintained.

I had high hopes for this system. Perhaps it was just a really bad idea to launch it now, long before the real work has been done.  To my mind this store should not have gone live until all the services and suppliers had been thoroughly vetted and assessed. Expert reviews of the remaining suppliers and further research of the market to ensure that a wide array of viable options is actually represented (rather than just those that have volunteered themselves) also seems necessary.

Until that time, this has little more value than a search on Google or Craigslist, and comes with potentially more risk of those, since it intends to help you shortcut necessary selection steps.

I'm all for speeding up and removing unnecessary bureaucracy from the procurement process, which is actually a one focus area of our business; but to repeat, the web application itself is not the important thing here. You can label it "cloud" and get more buzz, but at the end of the day it's the quality and veracity of the information delivered that matters most.  That information is nowhere near ready for consumption right now.

Now, if you're an industry insider or have been following this blog for a long time, that might seem like old news. We were among the first analyst firms to point to Redmond's own calculations of customers spending six-to-nine dollars on professional services for every dollar spent on SharePoint licensing. We've also consistently pointed out the necessity of corollary information and process management in any SharePoint-sized engagement.

Unfortunately, those details often get lost in the push to get SharePoint "stood up." You can understand why. For most enterprises, it takes herculean effort just to obtain...

• Consensus on basing their collaboration services on SharePoint
• Funding to license the platform across growing ranks of knowledge workers (or wherewithal to finally upgrade from MOSS 2007 to the modern version)
• Resources to implement baseline functionality
• Support to combine myriad departmental initiatives into some sort of enterprise whole
• Savvy business analysts to apply the requisite soft skills
• Large-scale education, training, and team-lead support
• And so on...

So you can probably empathize when, at the end of that process the collaboration manager says, "Phew, we made it!"

Except, of course, they have made almost nothing. And here comes the surprise. Colleagues who were expecting finished applications (like ideation communities) respond, "Is that all?" Some of you cleverly budgeted for add-on tools and services. Many of you didn't, and now have to go back, hat in hand, to sponsors. Ouch.

The most important thing to remember is that outside some very basic functionality, SharePoint is a platform. With enough time, money, and painkillers, you can get it to do almost anything. But then you or your integrator fall into the business of software development (and maintenance).

I sympathize with enterprise architects who argue that their burden becomes an almost impossible knot: business units bring intense integration needs, but those same units don't want an integration platform. They want productized solutions. That's a tough knot for sure. But I've seen first hand that it's a knot you can untie with a clear upfront strategy. Not a "SharePoint strategy," but a collaboration and information management strategy. Make sure you craft one, and let us know if we can help.

So I came up with three major lessons that seemed worth sharing:

1. Your internal competencies may be the biggest factor in your success implementing technology
2. Every prediction of significant marketplace "consolidation" has been wrong, although M&A activity has proven painful for customers
3. What makes your enterprise unique (and therefore successful) also plays out in how you apply technology

As always, welcome your thoughts in the comments below...

Digital Asset Management is another big gap. Customers may praise SharePoint in various ways, but no one can allege that SharePoint has strong DAM functionality. (For more details, consult our DAM Report).

To make up for SharePoint's lack of muscular DAM features -- such as large file storage, transcoding, and transformation -- customers usually look at a separate DAM product. Increasingly common in Microsoft-centric enterprises is using SharePoint as a front-end to a full-fledged functional DAM back-end -- so that when you need transcoding or other non-SharePoint functions, it's there behind the scenes. DAM vendor ADAM has the longest-running SharePoint connector, and it's been widely used, albeit with largely mixed results.  

Another widely used offering is MediaRich for SharePoint, by software vendor Equilibrium. It's different from ADAM's connector approach in that MediaRich is not a freestanding product. It requires and rides on the services/functionality provided by SharePoint, such as user management, search, and workflow. It works with both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010, providing the functionality around metadata, transformation of images, and transcoding of audio and video that SharePoint alone lacks. 

The question you need to ask yourself is, do you really need or want your digital assets to be managed via SharePoint, or is it better to take a DAM-specific path and leave SharePoint to manage documents?

If you're already using SharePoint and are looking for DAM functionality, evaluate whether your requirements are best met by an add-on like Equilibrium or whether you'll need a separate DAM product. Much of this will be dictated by the user experience you want to deliver: if users are accustomed to using SharePoint for internal document management, it may make sense to manage those documents together with digital assets, if business workflow requires it. But SharePoint isn't used elsewhere in the enterprise, it should not be the first tool that should come to mind for standalone DAM. 

Let us know if we can advise your decision-making.

Biggest changes have come around acquisitions (e.g., HP), and a fast-moving Red Line (a.k.a., Collaboration & Social), as well as a number of key entrants in the Digital & Media Asset Management segment.

For higher-resolution JPG and nicely-printable PDF versions of the map, visit
http://www.realstorygroup.com/vendormap/

Hope you find it helpful!

It's a question that many of our advisory customers have been asking us, so we decided to answer it in briefing format.

Cloud-based file-sharing services have obtained some traction, even among larger organizations, because of ease of provisioning and mobile access, as well as for exchanging files with external parties. At least five major providers now target enterprise customers for hosted file sharing: Box, Dropbox, Huddle, Oxygen, and ShareFile.

Just today in fact when talking with a major industrial manufacturer, the excitement and possibilities of working with such suppliers was tempered with concerns over their readiness and maturity to deal with real enterprise needs. To quote this prospective customer, "All these vendors tell us they work with big enterprises, but when we speak to them it feels like it's the first time a real enterprise has asked real enterprise questions of them..."

Certainly cloud providers are here to stay, and if employed in the right circumstances can bring real benefits, but it's still early days as our research paper details.

SharePoint licensees seeking to deliver on the promise of social networking and more advanced collaboration applications must therefore choose among three alternative approaches to close the gap:

1. Complement
2. Supplement
3. Extend

Each alternative carries specific benefits and demerits in terms of cost, time to market, long-term adaptability, mobile enablement, user experience, external access, and other dimensions. This recent briefing carefully examines the pros and cons to help you make the best decision.  It concludes with an analysis of a bonus fourth option -- do nothing and wait for SharePoint 2013 -- as well as a handy comparison chart to guide your decision-making.

It's available to our Collaboration and SharePoint research stream subscribers.  If you're not a subscriber, you can also purchase the briefing à la carte.

This is our sixth year in a row doing this humbling exercise. If you'd like to see how we've done previously, you can view past predictions here: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

Here's our 2012 technology predictions:

1. Big data meets web marketing
Digital marketing systems -- from analytics, to adaptive personalization, to social media monitoring platforms -- generate huge amounts of data. The ability to extract and leverage meaningful nuggets from these vast stores of information represents a persistent but increasingly important challenge for marketing specialists. 2012 will see specialist (typically SaaS...see below) vendors pull away from the pack of integrated WCM suites and other adjacent technologies that implement e-marketing functionality as a simple, add-on service.



2. Enterprise search marketplace opens up...again
The major vendors in this space are undergoing substantial transformation: FAST is getting sucked into the SharePoint vortex; Autonomy is facing an unclear future under HP; and Endeca remains fitful and distracted. Look for upstart vendors to fill the void as they did earlier this decade when the market was more open. In particular, look for specific applications based on the open source platform, Lucene.



3. Social services get called on the carpet in SharePoint
SharePoint has seen stratospheric, often viral growth in enterprises around the world. Licensees are beginning to discover, however, that its lack of contemporary social networking services and polished collaboration applications are limiting its effectiveness and driving business units to self-provision other tools. 2012 will see the rise of a variety of SharePoint-specific, supplementary offerings, from new and existing vendors alike.



4. CRM and CMS on a collision course
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Content Management Systems (CMS) have long been central pieces in the digital marketing toolkit; however the lines between these two systems will continue to blur in 2012. More and more, marketers want to set content and interaction experiences based on customer interaction, so CMS vendors continue to add CRM features, while CRM systems add more web publishing features. In the long run, we think integration is more promising than convergence; in the meantime, expect some messy collisions.

5. Death of the intranet as we know it
Intranet managers still have a key role to play in enterprise collaboration and information management, but employee expectations and the role of the intranet have changed dramatically over the past few years. Savvy companies will focus on the broader employee experience in a mobile, "digital workplace." 2012 will see a significant reallocation of resources from corporate communications to more business-oriented functionality.

6. BPM springs back to life
Process still matters, and workflow applications continue to dominate enterprise document and records management efforts. 2012 will see a renewed interest in good, old-fashioned BPM, as enterprises seek to orchestrate activities across organizational boundaries, including partner and supplier systems.

7. Rich media goes mainstream in the enterprise
Video is no longer an emerging technology for the enterprise. New social initiatives in particular will bring more media into internal systems. To be sure, a gulf remains in production quality (between professional and amateur), and employees will continue to look for increasingly sophisticated capabilities as both media producers and consumers. In 2012, enterprises will respond with specific, rich-media initiatives.

8. Big data blows into the cloud
More and more information management systems are generating or leveraging "big data." Yet, many enterprises don't have the resources, capacity, or expertise to properly store and mine this data. Fortunately, "big data" characteristics (such as unpredictable data inflow rates and the need for elastic processing capacity) make it a natural fit for the cloud. As a result, data-rich applications -- such as social media monitoring -- will increasingly go to market with SaaS-only delivery models.

9. Pervasive mobile-only apps
2011's mantra could have been "mobile first." 2012 will see "mobile first and last," as enterprises develop mobile-only interfaces to certain internal applications without focusing any effort on traditional, web-based (desktop/laptop) UIs. Many of these mobile apps will consist of specialized mashups among existing systems. A key driver here is the inexorable rise of tablets. We'll also see interesting examples where enterprises will tweak business processes to leverage tablets (e.g., in-store tablet catalogs).

10. New job titles emerge
Major technical and operational changes are driving new roles -- often informal, hybrid roles -- within the enterprise. 2012 will see the formalization of some of these roles into broadly recognized job titles. Samples include:

• Marketing Technologist - to master the increasingly complex services around e-marketing at scale
• Social Media Monitor - to interpret, understand, learn from, and respond to the fire hose of relevant activity on public social networks
• Enterprise Community Facilitator - to support localized community managers and foster productive cross-silo interaction
• Enterprise Media Producer - to produce or edit high volumes of video for internal and external consumption
• Director or VP of Digital Assets / Digital Media Manager - formal DAM roles emerge to establish ownership -- not just of assets, but of the systems and metadata -- of DAM and MAM

11. Security fears rise: phones, tablets, portable drives, the cloud -- where is our content?
Nearly everyone is a mobile worker. The proliferation of smartphones and tablets means that employees are walking around with disk drives containing company information. A lost or stolen phone or tablet containing sensitive information will likely cause a backlash in enterprise security departments. We've already heard of some highly regulated enterprises banning enterprise access from employee phones. For many employees, 2012 will bring even more rules and regulations around how they can use their mobile devices and renewed enterprise interest in digital rights management applications.

12. Lines blur between commercial and open source technologies
In the WCM and portal marketplaces, major open source projects are "commercializing" fairly rapidly, while many (though certainly not all) commercial vendors are adopting more open development and support models. This means that in 2012, customers will see increasingly less distinction between commercial vendors and "commercial open source" suppliers. The bigger gulf -- though it remains largely one of licensing -- is emerging between commercially-oriented open source projects and community-oriented projects across the WCM and portal landscapes.

Here is RSG's Alan Pelz-Sharpe to shed some more light on our predictions:

1) "Bring Your Own Device" policies will push HTML5 adoption for mobile access to enterprise applications
This has definitely happened, although HTML5 adoption remains quite incomplete.

2) Content-rich customers will rebel against Web CMS marketing spins
The key phrase here is "content-rich." We've definitely seen some disappointment among high-volume publishers (e.g., media), who don't want e-marketing and other corollary services from their WCM vendor.

3) Microsoft will turn to partners to fix SharePoint shortcomings
Yep. It's an old story. As a SharePoint version ages, Redmond stops arguing that it's feature-complete and encourages customers to seek out supplementary tools from partners.

4) The top end of the Web CMS market will be redefined
This happened. OpenText/Vignette and IBM continue to fade. EMC gave up on Documentum Web Publisher, Oracle is effectively deprecating its UCM (neé Stellent) WCM in favor of its new FatWire acquisition, and the future of Interwoven TeamSite/LiveSite has gotten even dicier with HP's acquisition of Autonomy. The big boys, long fading, have almost disappeared, getting replaced by a bevy of more focused alternatives.

5) Intranet community managers will adopt public social functionality
We've definitely seen more of this, though it's still not pervasive.

6) SaaS vendors will try to separate from "The Cloud"
Nope, we were wrong. If anything the opposite: SaaS vendors have uniformly embraced fluffy Cloud terminology to ride that wave of hype. This was the case even among those SaaS players that don't actually employ Cloud-based technology.

7) Buyers will have a greater acceptance of newer standards
In some cases (CMIS, HTML5) yes, but in other cases (activitystrea.ms, OpenSocial) not so much, yet.

8) Case Management will become the leading application from high-end ECM vendors
Absolutely. Case management actually constitutes a family of applications relevant to many different types of organizations. It's where much of the non-SharePoint ECM action lies today.

9) Digital Asset Management vendors will greatly expand video management capabilities
This happened, though perhaps not as heavily as we predicted. It remains unclear whether traditional DAM players have the chops to compete effectively with more video-oriented vendors.

10) E-mail will remain the world's de-facto enterprise document repository and workflow system
Alas, we were correct. Companies ditching e-mail remain very much the exception and not the rule.

11) Portal software will increasingly produce services for other portals
Hard to know exactly. Major enterprise software gets talked about more than implemented, but portals seem the opposite. Enterprises who have committed heavily to portal technology continue to invest in those platforms -- or perhaps more tellingly -- in the systems around those platforms. Yet more enterprises are getting comfortable with multiple portals, including "portal lite" applications.

12) Specialized talent around managing content will begin to migrate out of large corporations
This is an organic trend that's difficult to track, but we saw increasing evidence of it last year, as consultancies and integrators desperate for more talent continued to comb the ranks of enterprises for experienced specialists. There's no recession in information management technology right now...

By my count, we were about 9 out of 12, or 75%. Not bad, not awesome. About the same rate as previous years -- and a reasonable co-efficient to add to our 2012 predictions. Look for those new predictions from us in the next few days....

The side of the story that's glossed over on the show, though, is why someone abandoned the storage units in the first place. Were they unable to pay their storage rental bills due to hardship? forgetfullness? death? Surely, the original owners never expected a stranger to buy their posessions (prized or otherwise), let alone for it to happen on a television show.

I couldn't help but think of the parallels between physical storage space and the seemlingly limitless digital space available in "the cloud." I'm sure most of us think that we'll be the only ones who will ever have access to our photos on Facebook, our contacts in LinkedIn, our e-mails in Gmail, our files in Dropbox or Box.net or Office 365.

Much attention has been paid the security of the cloud from hackers - and rightly so - but users of cloud storage providers should get clear agreements in place that clearly states what happens if for some reason we stop paying our storage bills. Who owns the content? Is the content transferable to another owner? Is it transferable to another system? Does the content ever get destroyed?

The producers of Storage Wars are not likely to be thinking of a digital version of the show; but on TV or not, I doubt any of us would want our content to simply go to the highest bidder.

Just a year ago, SharePoint was practically the sole contender in light document management scenarios; now the environment has changed substantially. With heavy investment funding, Box is rapidly positioning itself as a SharePoint contender, going so far as posting a billboard in Silicon Valley stating, "Box.net vs SharePoint -- Sharing should be simple. Challenge us..."

But is Box.net really a SharePoint killer? If not, what does its rise tell us about how enterprises are (and are not) utilizing SharePoint? I am a cheerleader for no one, but cloud-based simple file sharing services such as Box.Net will likely play an increasingly important role in major enterprises.  I'd also welcome hearing your thoughts -- particularly interested in your experiences using hosted file-sharing in larger enterprises.

• Complex
• Viral
• Collaboration
• Clunky
• Misrepresented
• Social
• Bottomless Pit

This is typically a pretty pro-SharePoint audience, and in terms of research for our buyer-focused subscription ECM and SharePoint research services it has been a reliable source of peer information over the years.

But I have no doubt at all if we had asked the same question in previous years, we would have seen a more positive list of answers.  Further discussion revealed that SharePoint buyers and users in the room had been caught between a bottom up / top down approach to deployment.  Bottom up in that IT had thrown the problem of SharePoint over the wall and left users to self provision, or business users had simple gone off and acquired SharePoint on their own. Top down in that IT had provided very elementary and unusable SharePoint environments with insufficient education and training.  What was missing in both approaches was:

• Business Analysis
• Process Analysis
• Change Management
• Information Management

Neither the business groups that had SharePoint unleashed on them (or unleashed it themselves), nor the IT department that technically owned SharePoint offers those kind of skills anymore. Yet both assume somehow that the other will figure it all out. It's not so much that SharePoint is at fault; rather that growing SharePoint installations reveal the dearth of supporting resource, and their criticality.

We can call this a lack of skills, but that's not the real issue: it's a lack of enterprise commitment to the "soft" resources required for success here. Remember that SharePoint is like any other enterprise platform: you can't install and forget.  Adherents of SharePoint in the cloud would do well to note this too...

OK, this is partly an argument about labels, but labels matter. What most employees understand as their "intranet" -- updates from corporate communications, some HR forms, and a mountain of outdated docs -- is increasingly irrelevant.

The issue here is not that traditional intranet services have somehow lost value. Rather, it's that business units are moving on. They don't want to be "lured" to your vision of an intranet. They want some fairly specific services. From what I can see, there is a confluence of factors here:

Applications over platforms
Platforms are good for the kind of long-term planning and prep where IT excels. Unfortunately, platforms are less amenable to delivering short-term benefits to business units. Put another way, your colleagues don't need "SharePoint." They want a contracts management system, or a project scheduling utility, or any one of thousands of practical business services.

Ability to self-provision and employ SaaS-based solutions
This can be a tough one to swallow at an enterprise level, and you'll want to keep some controls in place. Yet, you also need to get ahead of practical business needs by offering some real alternatives, or your business colleagues will simply use their credit cards to buy what they need in the cloud.

Rise of Portal Lite
Rather than a big, heavy, developer-intensive enterprise portal, business units are increasingly seeking simpler forms of integration: basic dashboards / health meters, simple mash-ups, activity stream aggregation, and so on. And they want these services available ubiquitously, and not just in a corporate-wide portal. The good news is that some vendors are adapting. Are you?

Emphasis on collaboration and social
If you've spent the past three recessionary years trying to automate processes to cut costs, you're only getting half the picture. Sales, Marketing, R&D, Product Development, and other revenue-generating units want to be more agile, more innovative, and work more closely across silos. It takes much more than technology to do that successfully, but the right collaboration/social toolset is a key part of the overall solution here. When intranet teams deliver the wrong tools or approach, business units take matters into their own hands.

Blurring lines between enterprise applications and enterprise information
Employees don't want services bereft of supporting content; nor do they want content delivered in a way that's not immediately actionable. The sharp divide between applications and documents on most intranets is becoming anachronistic. Savvy intranet managers are focusing on content-enriched applications. The rise of mobile is really pushing this. Even the simplest static intranet "websites" make more sense as applications on mobile devices.

* * *

Let's not have a funeral. The death of the intranet heralds the re-birth of something better: a more practical set of tools that help people get their work done. Intranet managers should re-align with this new world and focus on services that businesspeople can use in the flow of their daily work. The digital workplace is actually less a specific place, but rather a mindset that creates services so badly needed that you'll never have to complain about "poor adoption" ever again.

That's hard, and you may skin your knees at first. Age-old challenges of security and interoperability can get tougher before they get better. Yet your colleagues are already looking way beyond your official intranet. It's worse to be irrelevant than to have experimented and failed. If we can help you, let us know...

* * *

P.S. This post was informed by some great chats at the recent KMWorld event with two of my favorite Digital Workplace gurus, Jane McConnell and Martin White.

I bring up the Rangers not because they are alive and well in the 2011 baseball playoffs while the Yankees and Red Sox are sitting at home, but because I was reminded of this moment with the recent Box news that they have received yet another round of VC funding. This round of $81 million brings the funding total to $162 million.   Not long ago, many were scoffing at Box as being just another California start-up foolishly comparing themselves to the SharePoint behemoth.  Box did not (and still doesn't) offer nearly as much functionality as SharePoint.  However, with $162 million in funding, they cannot be ignored as a contender.

Of course, money doesn't guarantee victory (as a die-hard Red Sox fan, I know). Box will need strong management and products that meets the needs of buyers, not just investors.  But one thing is certain, many of the collaboration and file-sharing mainstays are taking notice. Buyers likely will too.

Truth be told (and despite the hype), SharePoint 2010 isn't truly multi-tenant either. Though it's far ahead of its predecessor, the current version of SharePoint in O365 still has plenty of warts. For example, Microsoft announced a "new" feature of SharePoint Online in Business Connectivity Services (BCS).  Terrific!  The trouble is that BCS is a feature of SharePoint on-premise and Online is just catching up. 

During the keynote demo, Microsoft demonstrated BCS.  They showed a SharePoint Online application connected to SQL Azure that produced some nifty charts.  The demo got applause, but prompted Jeremy Thake from AvePoint to tweet: "Why use azure worker role to submit vote & not straight in #SharePoint list? 'coz we can!'"  Unfortunately, the real answer is that BCS only supports connecting to a web service (specifically a Windows Communication Foundation or WCF service).  As a result, this other web site (the Azure worker role) actually "shimmed" the SQL database with web services to enable the connection.

Beyond BCS, the story is quite uneven.  For features like Word, InfoPath and Excel Services, Microsoft has crafted a "value-added" subscription model (pay more, get more).  Other services, like managed metadata (a major feature of SharePoint 2010) are simply unavailable.  And, as I’ve mentioned, in the BCS case, Microsoft had to cripple the service to make it cloud compatible.  In the end, despite the new 2010 architecture, Microsoft was unable to effectively manipulate their service applications to truly understand multi-tenant environments; the services simply can't differentiate one tenant from another within the same farm (though if you have a private farm, the architecture works relatively well).

That said, no could argue anything other than SharePoint is poised to compete effectively with Google apps and other low-cost alternatives among individual professionals and small businesses.  Pure on-premise implementations were out of reach for the vast majority of small businesses and, certainly, individual professionals.  O365 falls into both the "it just works" and "it's good enough" categories of technology favored by SMB customers. 

Other so-called "SharePoint Killers" have been beating the cost, complexity or adoption drum (or all three) to differentiate themselves from the behemoth on-premise enterprise SharePoint product. Unfortunately, many of these products merely compete with SharePoint along one or two functional dimensions (like simple file sharing or light document management). However, their arguments hold less credibility in an O365 world, where the cost per user for enterprise-class e-mail (Exchange), internet-based collaboration (SharePoint) and real-time messaging (Lync) legitimately starts at $6 per month. Moreover, all of the services packaged in O365 are quite well integrated into the most widely adopted desktop productivity tool on the planet -- Office. 

So for the Davids of the SMB market, Goliath is calling and he's looking a bit more trim. For the larger enterprise market, SharePoint in the Cloud still has a ways to go....

This is a longstanding debate and proponents of both approaches will point to numerous benefits.

By using mobile web, you get the benefits of a standard based approach using which you can target a broader population of mobile devices. Downloadable apps --  they include device specific native applications as well as those based on so called RIA (Rich Internet Application) technologies like Flash - promise a richer user experience optimized to specific devices. 

As with any technology, there's no single answer for all scenarios. As with desktop environments, I believe multiple approaches will co-exist on mobile devices as well.  The question is how to discern when to go browser versus app.

In our recently released advisory briefing, Mobile-Enabling Enterprise Applications: Browser or Downloadable Apps?, we explore this very topic and provide some guidance on when to use which approach. The table of contents for the advisory is as follows:

• Key Takeaways
• Introduction
• The Case for Web Apps
• HTML5 Brings New Mobile Browser Capabilities
• The Case for Downloadable Apps
• Conclusion

The advisory briefing is available to all of our research stream subscribers.

While some have criticized our comparing SharePoint to Lotus Notes, I think the comparison is nevermore appropriate.  The two platforms, though different in terms of functionality, are identical in the ways that count: adherents fanatically defending the technology, with a very large partner ecosystem and a committed community developing surprising solutions from generic features.  Like Notes, the real value of SharePoint is well beyond the core constructs the platform provides.  As I have said many times, SharePoint-based solutions generally "look" nothing like SharePoint.  These solutions make inventive use of platform facilities to create something greater and specific to the problem the solution needs to solve.  This was/is true for Notes and it is even more true for SharePoint.  Just look at SharePointReviews or Microsoft's own "solution directory" for a glimpse of the breadth of the add-on ecosystem; this will help you understand the diversity that's possible. Of course, the same predilection for extension and bespoke development got Notes shops into trouble too.

Where the comparison between Notes and SharePoint diverge, in my mind, is the sheer size of the connected product sets from Microsoft (and others) and the potential for SharePoint growth as a result.  The best example is Office.  SharePoint's 120 million licenses sold is an astonishing figure for a collaboration product.  However, when you compare that to a Microsoft-reported 1 billion user population for Office, the SharePoint community seems rather small.  IBM and Lotus Corp before them could never boast such a large productivity tool install base, nor were they able to bring related collaboration tools to as wide a market as Microsoft.

As individuals and organizations of all sizes are increasingly geographically distributed, information workers  (to use Microsoft's vernacular) will continue to drive demand for network-based file and information sharing as well as more real-time and disconnected communication vehicles.  With the launch of Office365 this past June, previously impractical on-premise SharePoint implementations for individuals or small firms become a simple subscription to SharePoint in a shared environment.  More importantly, the subscription isn't limited to SharePoint, since it includes other connected products like Exchange, Office and Lync.  And while all four products are presented separately, packaged as Office365, they start to appear as simply features of a broader productivity suite.  As a result, like Office did for Word, Excel & PowerPoint, Office365 will "drag" SharePoint into a previously inaccessible user population.  In fact, the meteoric growth of SharePoint 2010 (roughly 65 million licenses or about 50% of all SharePoint licenses), could be eclipsed by SharePoint vNext as both organizations and individuals really start to sign-up for Office365.   If we further consider the co-star of the SharePoint Conference, Azure, Microsoft has created what could only be called a very diverse productivity offering.

Should everyone run out and adopt SharePoint?  No.  While I firmly believe we have not yet seen the crest of SharePoint growth, buyers should continue to carefully weigh what tools make sense for them.  Remember that SharePoint 2010 remains the same product it was two years ago (minus some modest updates through service packs).  It is not best of breed in most functional categories.  And while Office365 may have made SharePoint technology practically available to more users, the SharePoint portion of the O365 feature set still has meaningful limitations when compared to on-premise SharePoint. 

This year's SharePoint Conference consistently delivered the "steady as she goes" message and Microsoft effectively reminded everyone why SharePoint has been a success.  Office365 was a very clear highlight and even the limited announcements (like the addition of BCS in SharePoint Online) implicitly and explicitly hints at the underlying strategy Microsoft has adopted around these products.  However, my previous advice still holds: when evaluating SharePoint across a single use dimension like web content management or business intelligence, you're unlikely to find it effectively competing with pure-play tools.  SharePoint's real value is and will continue to reside in its breadth of functionality and connections to other Microsoft tools like Office and Lync; these are very compelling attributes to be sure.  If your organization needs to implement an intranet, an extranet and an internet site (or some combination), SharePoint may be a good fit to help consolidate technology platforms and skillsets.

That's a platform view, however, and often business stakeholders want something more practical. For a pure-play, single dimension tool to solve a singular aspect of your content management challenges, like web content, you'll be best served to carefully evaluate other tools alongside SharePoint to ensure the best fit.

Kurt DelBene (Microsoft President of the Office Group) fielded harsh criticism regarding the lack of "new" information or big product announcements during the conference. His response was blunt: our product teams haven't been sitting around for two years, it's just too early to share.  In fact, Microsoft went out of their way to focus on what the core product does today and "remind" everyone in attendance (some 7,500 people) that SharePoint 2010 is still thoroughly relevant.  Jeff Teper (VP, SharePoint Product Group) even went as far as to claim that he didn't want anyone at the conference to walk away and say "I didn't know SharePoint could do that."

On balance, this message isn't exactly a disappointment.  In my experience talking about SharePoint as well as building solutions on the platform virtually everyday, it's not all that hard to miss less-used or less "popular" features.  SharePoint, as I've said before, is a vast software platform that can be used to develop many different solutions.  Consultants, like customers, tend to focus on those features and functions that support common business scenarios.  Less frequently used features often get forgotten.

For example, most firms are familiar with Excel Services; it provides a way to surface an Excel workbook in a web interface and enable some limited editing.   This service has been around since SharePoint 2007 and it works well.   However, what is less used is the REST programming interface (introduced in 2010) for accessing both charts and data in that workbook.  With this interface (which is merely a series of URLs), you can dynamically or statically embed an Excel chart (or other data) in a blog post, Word document or PowerPoint presentation without programming.  You can also keep that embedded chart in sync with the source chart in that workbook without having to do more than update the workbook.   While I've seen many customers use Google or Yahoo for creating dynamic charts, SharePoint buyers have this capability in-house and don't seem to know it.

It's easy for gurus to get frustrated by the lack of news, but for SharePoint customers, I think the messages that Microsoft is promoting for this conference are relevant, even if predictable.  Many enterprises are still struggling with SharePoint 2007 or just starting to deploy SharePoint 2010.  One typical SharePoint customer I spoke with has had their 2010 solution in place for only five months, while others are just starting their migration.  Too many customers have multiple technologies simply sitting on the shelf; you should look at what you already own before buying the next shiny object.

A few interesting tid-bits did emerge:

• Redmond announced a partnership with WebTrends to bolster analytics.  SharePoint 2010 has some basic analytics in the box, but they're just that: basic.  The WebTrends deal sparks hope that we'll see higher-grade analytic capabilities not only around the typical internet-facing sites, but also deeper insight into internal behaviors as well.
• Office 365 is getting more functionality.  Microsoft is finally adding support for Business Connectivity Services in the cloud.  This means that customers on SharePoint Online can begin to connect their O365 SharePoint sites to external data sources, assuming that data is Web Service enabled.  While BCS isn't a new feature to SharePoint, it is bringing O365 and the on-premise versions closer to parity.
• Kurt DelBene seemed to suggest that Microsoft is also evaluating different release cycles; they want to commit to a quarterly release cycle on O365 and may experiment with new ways to deliver features for on-premise implementations outside of the typical 36-month cycle.  He was, however, careful to say they don't have anything formalized and are still working on the details. (We've heard this before.)

Outside of the reminders and some minor announcements, Microsoft was again promoting its ecosystem.  This is something I and others at RSG have discussed at length; SharePoint has an enviable collection of independent software vendors (ISVs) that build add-ons, systems integrators that develop customer implementations, and a developer community that virtually no other platform can equal.  As such, Microsoft did a bit of promoting both during the conference and through a blog post welcoming folks to the conference.  With a Microsoft-reported 700,000 developers and more than 1,000 ISV solutions (read: add-ons), the momentum seems to continue to build around the product.  That post also included some interesting statistics on the customer base, including a breakout of pure SharePoint 2010 licenses.

While pure-play vendors will continue to outshine SharePoint in specific functional categories, the platform continues to maintain a unique market position based on the breadth of functionality and depth of its ecosystem.  SharePoint 2010 can be a viable answer for many different problems, but there's still much to be learned about the platform before we all start musing about SharePoint 2013.

It's been over 10 years since I first came across SharePoint and so much has changed in that time. Changes both in terms of the products, but also in terms of buyers and market expectations. I think SharePoint is approaching something of a crossroads, one that users of the platform may be more aware of than Microsoft and its partner channel. The times they are a-changing...and SharePoint has evolved in ways nobody could have expected.

The competition, meanwhile, is far from rolling over and giving up. In fact it has adapted remarkably well. 

That's the theme of this webinar -- who is buying SharePoint in 2011, why are they buying it and when might this Microsoft steamroller of success finally begin to run out of steam? I hope you join me for the webinar and also join in with the Q&A session following.

The conversation will continue in more depth in Washington DC on 2nd/3rd November at the SharePoint Symposium. It is an event I am looking forward to very much, as along with our partners at KMWorld, we have structured a conference with not only truly outstanding speakers and sessions, but also a great and friendly opportunity to hang out, mix and share with your peers.  Of course I know not everyone will be able to make in person to the DC event, but I do hope you can make it to the webinar next week...it's going to be an interesting one.

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Above all, your loyalties lie instinctively with software consumers rather than producers. We're looking for "truth detectors."

We have a strong preference for candidates in one of the following locales: UK or Northern Europe; Delhi, India; North America (ideally Northeast Corridor). See the description for application details.

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