There is a SharePoint in your Future

Last week I was able to attend the Kollabria SharePoint 2010 Seminar in San Francisco. This is one in a series of seminars that are being held at the Microsoft Technology Centers across the US over the next few weeks. If you get the  chance you should plan on attending. 

You can see the agenda and dates here (scroll down for both).

This event has been developed by Rai Wasner and his talented team at Kollabria in conjunction with Microsoft and several of the top vendors in the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) space. The emphasis is not on the speeds and feeds of SharePoint – rather it’s from the ROI and business benefit point of view. I’ve known Rai for many years and he continues to deliver insightful and poignant perspectives on the industry.

Playing off a Steve Ballmer quote where he said "SharePoint, in a sense, is becoming an operating system." Barry Baronas – Research Director at Kollabria tweaked this and said “SharePoint is a Business Operating System” and this is the kind of thinking I’ve come to expect from Rai and Kollabria as a whole.

SharePoint 2010 is a Whole New Ball Game

As the Kollabria events are pointing out there is a new dynamic to the enterprise content management space. It’s being enabled and I think forever changed with the upcoming release of SharePoint 2010. There are so many companies that already own SharePoint and there are so many partners that have subject matter expertise across countless vertical and horizontal markets that I am sure we will see an explosion of solutions hitting the market in 2010.

The Four Pillars of ECM

As I have written about before in SharePoint’s Next Billion Dollars I see Pillar One being a primary opportunity for customers to finally start to tame their paper tiger. This is also an opportunity for partners – partners IS plural – because this is not a zero sum game.

The other pillars are also ripe for solution development. Microsoft has wisely left areas for partners to develop and extend the SharePoint platform. Including Breaking into the Fourth Pillar – ECM Storage and there are also areas for Workflow / BPM vendors in Pillar Three as well as areas for companies to extend and enhance Pillar Two – the core Document and Records Management area of the ECM market. Not the be left out Microsoft is also going after the cloud computing market. I have written about the bigger ECM picture for ECM in the Cloud and I see this as another prime opportunity for customers and partners to take advantage of SharePoint as a platform.

SharePoint is HOT – SharePoint 2010 is a Game Changer

For more of a perspective on this I think the SharePoint Conference that was held last October showed that momentum is building. As Rai, Barry, and the Kollabria team have so aptly stated --- SharePoint is a Business Operating System. Which it very easy for me to say … There is a SharePoint in your future.

What do you think?

• Do you think SharePoint is a “Business Operating System?”
• How will SharePoint change the ECM market?
• Which Pillars need the most attention to get ECM right?

Please add your comments to this blog post or click on any of my contact coordinates below. I do want to hear from you. I’m always up for collaborating on new ways to think about the industry too. If you have ideas – let’s think them thru.

About The Author:
I have spent the better part of the last 20 years working in various aspects of the ECM industry. I am currently with Kodak as a Director of Business Development. In my past I have spent time at Kofax, Microsoft, FileNet, K2, and at Captaris (which was acquired by Open Text in Nov 2008). Prior to that I was a Unix VAR running my own company. Follow me on Twitter, check my blog, send email or find me on Facebook or LinkedIn.