Next Wednesday I will be hosting a free SharePoint-themed webinar. My intent is to look at SharePoint in 2011, its victories to date and its challenges ahead.
While SharePoint has been on the market since 2001, customers still get quite confused by Microsoft's licensing schemes. When I speak at conferences, I'm commonly asked about how to license SharePoint. Questions like "what can I expect to pay for SharePoint licenses" or "what specific licenses to I have to buy" are frequent topics of discussion
By now you know that Microsoft SharePoint has a 3-year development cycle. Three years is not a long time for highly process-oriented functionality, like many types of document management applications. However, a long development cycle is a significant shortcoming in areas like Collaboration/Social and Web Content Management, where Redmond's circa-2009 codebase feels increasingly out of step
It's a discussion that reoccurs regularly enough with Real Story Group Document Management (ECM) subscribers -- how do I get skilled ECM staff?
It's a tough question to answer
It's a simple formula that works most of the time in enterprise environments. It works for the simple reason that most electronic documents that require organizational attention typically are captured and proceed down a structured workflow
As I've noted on this blog many times before, a lot of Google Search Appliance's "features" are actually outside-of-the-box, rather than out-of-the-box. That can present an unpleasant surprise to many Google customers. But ironically, it's also a great advantage to anyone who wants to use
One of the questions I hear time and again is: "We're running SharePoint. Should we get a Google Appliance for search?" This was the case with SharePoint 2007, and it hasn't changed with 2010
Just as Microsoft has its own very distinctive approach and definition for ECM, so too does Oracle. In fact as time goes on, Oracle's approach to ECM is becoming more individual and distinctive
Last week I helped my colleague Tony Byrne host the SharePoint Symposium in Washington DC. We ran many of sessions there and had a good turnout at each, hardly surprising of course as SharePoint remains a very hot topic
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 boasts an extraordinarily large and quite diverse "ecosystem" of consultants, integrators, and add-on software vendors. For customers, though, this landscape can be very confusing
However, make no mistake: FAST may be a lot less expensive, but it's certainly not going to come cheap. Not in the least bit because implementing it right will still be an expert's job.
Yesterday morning I was reading through Oracle's recently updated price list (yes my Monday mornings really are that exciting). I was thinking that I have long valued the fact that I can access simple, clear and open prices from major vendors like Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. I might occasionally gasp at the prices listed