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Ahead of the curve... again

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Fascinating.  First, we hear that pundits on the blogosphere have given the name AJAX to 1997 Microsoft technologies and called it 'new.' Now some folks are talking about the basic capabilities of Windows Sharepoint Services as though they didn't happen three years ago.  (See Enterprise 2.0)

Blogs, wikis, worker-driven content in the Intranet.  Dude, Microsoft has been using these technologies, internally, for years, literally.  The product is Sharepoint, and it has been a FREE download for Windows Server 2003 almost since the day that product was released. 

The IT group I'm in uses blogs to communicate.  Nearly all of our documents, plans and specs are shared in public or semi-public collaboration sites, entirely self service, hosted through Sharepoint portal server.  In addition, there are two major Wiki sites with literally hundreds of sub-sites on each one for internal use.  (One based on FlexWiki, the other based on Sharepoint Wiki Beta).

Sharepoint is not just used in Microsoft.  It is one of the most successful server products in the line.  Once a company installs Sharepoint, it is hard to keep it from becoming a de-facto standard for collaboration, sharing, and distribution of content.  The product is unstoppable.

I guess I don't mind when two scientists reach the same conclusion from different sources.  Happens all the time.  However, reputable scientists give credit to the first one to publish their ideas.  In this case, I'd expect that folks wouldn't name products from other companies without also mentioning widely accepted products from Microsoft.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 18, 2006
    I actually am very positive on what I am seeing from SharePoint v3 - it really looks like you guys are heading towards another "Exchange" class of product.

    That said - it is a bit rich to imply that the feature set of SharePoint v3 (eg the Wiki etc) which is not released, has been around for three years. This is an example where you guys hurt yourselves with the long development cycles on some products - the new features will be great but until they are released no-one but you guys can use them. Having an interim WSS v2.5 would have been useful in this example.
  • Anonymous
    April 18, 2006
    I disagree that Sharepoint is a blog. At least not until the next version. Does Sharepoint tell a central site that it's published? Really? Quick, tell me what the latest Sharepoint site at Microsoft is that was just published. With blogs I can go to http://www.weblogs.com to see that.

    Quick, show me which Sharepoint sites have linked to my sharepoint site internally. With Technorati I can see that.

    Quick, show me a permalink on each Sharepoint item so that I can link to specific posts.

    Quick, show me an RSS feed on each Sharepoint site. With a blog I have that automatically.

    Quick, show me how to customize my Sharepoint site's look and feel. It's hard. Far harder than it is to change my blog's look and feel cause my blog's look and feel uses standard CSS.

    Not to mention but a blog does just one thing very well. Sharepoint sites do lots of things which confuse users (like file sharing).

    I love Sharepoint for other reasons (lists, file sharing, and the fact that everyone has one inside Microsoft) but let's not call it a blog, OK?
  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2006
    I'm rereading my entry and I do make an implication that is not true.  So for the sake of honesty, let me state: While internal groups are using blogs, they are not (yet) provided by Sharepoint.  We do use Wikis, but they, too, are not from Sharepoint (yet).  Sharepoint does provide worker-managed content on the intranet.  However, Sharaepoint in its current version does not provide blogs in the tool.  We use three different products for that.

    In the near future, all three will be in a single product.

    To be fair to my original point, the Enterprise 2.0 discussions do not 'require' that the environment must come from a single tool to be considered complete.  That environment exists today inside Microsoft.

    The grouping labeled 'Enterprise 2.0' is available, entirely using Microsoft technologies, for free, today.  Flexwiki, Sharepoint, and any one of the many IIS-based blog servers (including this one).

    For a single integrated product... well I have my opinions about the long cycle times as well.  For now, I'll keep them to myself :-).

  • Anonymous
    April 22, 2006
    ...and the cynic in me looks for the (not even vastly) improved outcomes...not a sausage!

    Maybe I'm being harsh...perhaps the by-products would have been even worse otherwise?

    Cheers, Frank.
  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2006
    Ahead of the curve? Yes, definately. Just like the wonderful NetMeeting product that does way more than Skype does (but got killed off and forgotten). Just like how MSN Messenger supports video, audio, and at one point supported VoIP calls (years and years ago), and now all this stuff is coming back as new. Sigh.
  • Anonymous
    May 23, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 23, 2006
    Hello Andrew,

    I was saying this not from the standpoint of a recognized monopoly, but rather from the standpoint of a provider of an application that is widely accepted, but not recognized as being a pre-existing entrant in a 'new-new' space.

    I did not say this about Word.  I said this about Sharepoint.  Are you using Sharepoint?  If not, you should be.  Then you may discover that you already have many of the features of 'Enterprise 2.0' installed, for free.

    Give us credit for being in the leading edge.
  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2008
    PingBack from http://www.wiredprairie.us/blog/index.php/archives/561