The SharePoint Headroom Myth

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I wrote a post recently about SharePoint moving from little g to BIG G. It seems there was some confusion over what I meant by this post. Some thought I was belittling SharePoint. Some thought I was stating the obvious. imageSome thought I was talking down to the SharePoint Community. These last three points could not be further from the truth. I’m All In with SharePoint.

Here is the what I meant … SharePoint has a LOT of headroom.

What do I mean by Headroom?

SharePoint as a product and as a platform has a lot of room to grow. I’m all in. So are a lot of other people. There is a huge partner community and a lot of companies that have gone all in too.

SharePoint is Ubiquitous and Pervasive

Some SharePoint Stats from 2012 … it’s only getting BIGGER:

  • 125 million Client Access Licenses
    • imageMeaning this many people can access and use SharePoint today
  • 65,000 SharePoint Servers
    • Meaning there are a lot of companies with SharePoint Servers available for their use.
    • This does NOT include SharePoint Online which is available as part of the Office 365 deployment offerings.
  • 700,000 Developers
    • That’s a lot of people looking for Headroom!
  • 4000 Partners
    • There are a lot of people in these partner organizations, with probably more than 2 million combined brains looking for the next great thing and to use SharePoint while creating headroom.

imageThe smart partners are making the most of this and are creating applications that address specific problems as “point solutions” or they create enterprise wide solutions. Many of them will be somewhere in between that span Line-of-Business (LOB) systems.

The Future of SharePoint will be defined by partners that extend the platform. By Partners that Seek and Create Headroom.

The Future of SharePoint will be to continue pushing the envelope and finding even more headroom in new markets and new areas where SharePoint can be used to address business and technical challenges.

There should be no confusion. I’m All In. I’m committed to the SharePoint space and I’ve spent the better part of ten years helping companies design, develop and deploy solutions that extend and enhance SharePoint.

I’m All In

In case anyone is still confused. I’ve been working with SharePoint for over 10 years now. I’ve seen hundreds (in fact, thousands) of SharePoint deployments. Some great, some mediocre and a few not so great. The upside is that there is a lot of headroom in the SharePoint space to create solutions that address a myriad of solution scenarios.

Does SharePoint take over markets? Sure. Does it completely wipe out the markets that it enters? No.

SharePoint Does Invade Markets – Get Used to It

SharePoint has redefined the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) space. Did it take over and replace every other ECM vendor out there? NO! SharePoint is a platform and as a platform it allows partners (and internal customer teams) to extend and enhance it to meet their needs. Think about things like Digital Signatures (DocuSign and ARX); Document Scanning (Kodak and Fujitsu); Archiving; and hundreds more vertical and horizontal solutions

In the coming years SharePoint deployments will continue to expand into new markets and will continue to seek areas with headroom to grow. Get Used To It!

The Future of SharePoint

imageI’ve written a lot and spoken quite a few times about SharePoint and how to get the most out of SharePoint today and in the future.

The Future of SharePoint will see the trend for solutions that transition from Systems of Record to Systems of Engagement. This is one of the areas where SharePoint can help companies grow and make the most of their people, their data and their technologies.

  • The Future of SharePoint is ECM
  • The Future of SharePoint is Mobile and will involve Big Data
  • The Future of SharePoint is in the Cloud and will be Social.

The Future of SharePoint is … The Social Enterprise!

The Social Enterprise will a topic for a series of my next posts.

Until then please keep in mind that I am all in and that I am committed to the SharePoint space. I spend most every day thinking of ways to Surface Data in SharePoint in new and unique ways. I also look for ways to involve other people and partners in this quest. For those that I have worked with in the past 10+ years … thank you. For those that I will work within the coming years I thank you in advance.

The SharePoint Headroom Myth

The idea that SharePoint has reached it’s zenith is far from the truth. The people that I’ve met in the SharePoint community are committed and passionate. They are committed to finding the next thing. To expanding into new areas. To creating more headroom for SharePoint.

This Myth is Busted!

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