Big bad SharePoint

Interesting article about how people (especially IBM) are scrambling to bridge the SharePoint divide. In part, the article says:

“Big Blue is clearly worried about the broad proliferation of SharePoint sites. They are cropping up in companies and departments everywhere. With the free Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) so easy to turn on, and departments needing a simple to use, cheap place to store documents and collaborate on work, it’s no wonder they skip WebSphere to get their jobs done. So IBM, not wanting to get kicked completely to the curb needs an integration story for all these SharePoint data stores.”

In these poor economic times even large businesses can see that free Windows SharePoint Services can make them far more productive. The article also goes on to say:

“But it doesn’t look like IBM is the only big boy scared of the SharePoint craze. It seems the Open Source community may also be a little concerned about loosing market share to the mighty marketing machine that is Microsoft.”

So it would seem that SharePoint has them all running scared. Why? Because it is such a great tool. Because it is a platform on which on-going development is happening. As more and more people get on board with SharePoint the whole ecosystem around the product grows. Sure, Microsoft probably makes lots of money from SharePoint Office Server (MOSS) but Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) is free. It is even an integrated part of SBS 2008. So why do so few small businesses use it?

I think simply because no one has ever shown them what SharePoint is. If there was ever an opportunity in this market, then here it is. SharePoint is a quick and easy way to provide real time saving solutions for clients. It is a great way to help save them money by doing things better.

So what’s the first step? If you aren’t familiar with SharePoint then start using it, see my Windows SharePoint Operations Guide as a way to get skilled up quickly, visit my SharePoint site http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au for free document downloads, go out and buy some books and read, but mainly start using it so you can sell it. Why? The opposition is running scared when it comes to SharePoint and that sounds pretty encouraging to me.