This is it – the final post containing questions from the SharePoint webinar I presented on January 28, 2009.  Previous questions and answers can be found in Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.  As well, the recorded webinar, during which many questions were answered, can be downloaded.

The questions in this post are the most technical and product specific of all the questions asked during the webinar. I wish to state again, that my expertise and that of my company, Information Architected, is defining strategies, cost justifications and project plans for content, process, knowledge and innovation management. We focus on the intersection of ECM technologies and business management. Technology such as SharePoint are clearly within our sweet spot, and lately we have been involved with many strategies that involve SharePoint, but unlike consultants who specialize in integration services and solution deployment, Information Architected does not have intimate experience with the inner workings of SharePoint.  I state this because, as stated, this post focuses on many highly technical and product specific issues.  As a result, my answers are not as in-depth as those provided in earlier posts.

I have answered each question – but I am also asking questions in my answers.  In the spirit of collaboration, those of you that can shed further light on these answers please do so in the form of a comment.

OK – with that said, here goes, the final 8 questions:

Q: Several other products are beginning to roll out SharePoint “connectors”. I’m particularly curious about workflow – what is the adoption and satisfaction for those complementary pieces? – Any information about using Nintex workflow with SharePoint?
A: I am aware of one company that I have worked with (manufacturing vertical) that selected Nintex as their SharePoint-integrated workflow product.  In their case the integration went very well, and user satisfaction is high.

Anyone else have experience with Nintex and Sharepoint willing to share your experience or opinion?  How about other workflow products? Which work well or poorly with SharePoint? (Solution providers feel free to chime in, I ask only that you identify yourself as such.)
Q: In the WCM / DAM space, how does SharePoint fare against other products like Interwoven, FatWire, SDL Tridion etc.?

A:  You may have noticed, Simon Cole of Autonomy commented on an earlier blog post on how the Autonomy product stacked up against SharePoint?  He focused on the records capability of Autonomy/Meridio. Any other solution providers want to weigh in on this?  Is the list of competition provided here (Interwoven, FatWire, SDL Tridion) all inclusive?  What other products belong on this list? How would you rank them?  Solution providers and users with experience comments all welcome, but please identify who you are.

Q: When migrating to SharePoint, What’s the best way to deal with a large amount of legacy files stored on the FileServer? Can SharePoint be a replacement to File Servers?
A:  First, the easy question – yes SharePoint can, and very often is a replacement to file servers.  But what if you are migrating from a file server environment (or other approach to organizing online files), is there a best practice or toolset that simplifies the porting of the content into SharePoint?

I am aware of one company that needed to migrate gigabytes of content from Documentum to SharePoint.  In this case, they wrote a macro that exported the content and all associated metatags and security schemes (this was the tricky part) from Documentum, to a file share area, and then imported into SharePoint.  Other experiences or recommendations?

Q: We have a client that was sold SharePoint implementations – but don’t have the staff to operate it. There is a lot of discussion for our team to setup SharePoint Templates – What is the best course of action we would want to take before we even start to build templates?

A:  I believe that you are on the right track. I have witnessed many organizations, especially those with a lean development staff, leverage templates to expedite the creation of tailored SharePoint sites. (Application templates are “out-of-the-box” SharePoint scenarios tailored to specific business processes or settings. They provide a starting point for “developers” looking to build SharePoint-based solutions.) Templates are among some of the more popular features of SharePoint. In fact, the most common complaint I hear about them is that there are not enough commercially available from Microsoft or 3rd parties (business opportunity?)   On a non-technical note, start by determining which scenarios would be most leveraged within your organization. Do a needs assessment to determine the least common denominator of what is needed by those scenarios and then develop templates to fit those needs.

Are there technical best practices for template development? Anyone care to share their experiences and opinions?

Q: Have you seen any who have abandoned SharePoint that are adopting other collaborative tools, such as Unity Studio with which you can develop interlocking systems between different pieces?

A:  I have not yet had the chance to speak with anyone who has abandoned SharePoint. (You may recall that 2% of the companies I surveyed indicated that they had deployed SharePoint in a production mode and then abandoned it.) While the survey uncovered that the primary motivation behind abandonment was security concerns, it did not shed light on what was done as an alternative.

As for Unity Studio – no specific knowledge on my part. (The only reference I could find to it using Google was an in-house “collaborative software environment for industrial automation and all disciplines needed to design a process or a plant”, developed by Schneider Electric.
Are there any Unity Studio users out there that care to comment?
How about others who have decided to use a competitive product? What are the valid alternatives to SharePoint in your opinion?

Q:  What do you recommend for SharePoint site collections in terms of flat and wide or a deep hierarchy design pros/con.

A:  This answer is obviously a matter of opinion, in this case mine – flat and wide, based on taxonomy and portal usability tenets I believe in.  But what do you say?

Q: Where do you see SharePoint consulting firms investing in their practice skill sets given the ’sophomore year’ of SharePoint?
A: Hmm – anyone out these that would like to weigh in on this?  As potential customers of such services, what talents and skills are most desirable in a SharePoint consultant/programmer?
Based on the survey, I would think that experience and methodology for integrating SharePoint with security and records control would be high on the list.

Q: We’re looking to implement SharePoint at our location (3500 users) to replace Lotus Notes. I would like more information on what system requirements and staff needs to implement and maintain the system.

A: OK all you users and system integrators out there what do you say?  What is the  “right” staffing mix for a SharePoint deployment of 3500 Notes users.  Anyone with specific experience migrating from Lotus Notes?  Have any of you lived through a Notes to SharePoint migration?  What were the lessons learned? What skills were most important?

And with that – THAT’S IT.  The outstanding questions from the SharePoint webinar have all been answered. Ongoing dialogue and answers to the questions I posed in this post are certainly welcome however.

You may listen to the recorded webinar, during which many other questions were answered.

This post has a theme to it – Records Management and SharePoint.  Several questions were asked, all revolving around this issue.  I have grouped them together, hoping that the juxtapositioning of questions and answers will render a result greater than a mere sum of the parts.

So here goes…

Q: What do you consider the difference between document management and records management?

A:  Clearly this question is not a SharePoint specific issue, but a far more basic ECM question.  I imagine it came up in the SharePoint webinar because, SharePoint received better grades for document management functionality than it did for records management.  I can and do provide lengthy training and lectures on such subjects, but this is not the time or place, so let me be brief.  Document management (DM) is basically the ability to provide library services on a file.  It tracks revisions (edits) and maintains an audit trail of what was done by whom to the file.  Additionally most DM systems also provide some approach to search and retrieval, and security. Records management (RM) is a far more formal and structured discipline, governed by a litany of standards and best practices. RM systems support the definition of a classification scheme for categorizing documents into “record types.” Additionally RM tools allow users to, or automate, the declaration of documents as records.  Once declared, the records are secured, and maintained until their declared destruction or archival date is met, and then appropriate action is taken. RM systems can also play a critical role in e-discovery and compliance applications.  Again, SharePoint gets “good” grades on document management, and “poor” grades on records management.  (See earlier post for more detail.)

Q: Why do you think the survey respondents said that SharePoint is not used or only used somewhat in compliance and e-discovery applications?

A:  I believe the answer to this question is implied in the response above.  Put frankly, SharePoint does not provide adequate functionality to address records management and therefore is not heavily used in applications that require this functionality, such as compliance and e-discovery.  Those who are using it “somewhat” are likely using the SharePoint environment as a platform for file sharing – only – and have augmented it with other integrated technologies and processes.

Q: Does a Records Management program assist in deploying SharePoint?

A:  Clearly RM is an area of functionality that most users believe SharePoint does not provide well.  So, in scenarios in which RM level control is  desired or necessary, then yes, the integration of an RM system with SharePoint can be very beneficial, and render a less-risk SharePoint environment.  On the other hand, no, this does not simplify deployment – but rather complicates it.  Integration of additional functionality such as RM, was the number 2 greatest challenge sited by survey takers, second only to adequate personnel and toolsets to execute the integration.

Q: Does SharePoint increase the need for corporations to reignite their records management programs?  What do we tell executives who think that SharePoint is the ultimate, simple solution to complete records management.

A:   SharePoint provides facilitated sharing of files, not necessarily in a secure or controlled environment (read RM.) So yes, in my opinion, an organization should “reignite” its RM programs when deploying SharePoint, at least to ask IF the SharePoint collections warrant records-level ocntrol. If an executive is insisting that SharePoint should “simply be implemented to ultimately solve the records management issues of the organization”, a little and simple education is necessary.  This is a perception problem of what records management is. Have him/her describe what they mean by records management.  If focus is on facilitated sharing – proceed.  If focus is, on the other hand, on compliance, point them to these survey findings and beg that they learn from the experiences of those that went before him/her.

OK that’s it for the RM questions.  In my next post, I will revert back to a rich mixture of issues.  BTW – we are getting close.  Probably 1-2 more SharePoint Q&A posts, so stay tuned…

You may still listen to the recorded webinar during which many other questions were answered and issues discussed.

So here goes -the next 10 questions and answers:

Q:  Are BLOBs full-text searchable?

A:  This question may have been asked generically, so let me start with a broad answer. In general, BLOBs or Binary Large Objects, can be full-text searched only with some search engines.  My understanding is that BLOBs can be made full-text searchable with the SharePoint full-text search tool, but that this requires customization.

Q:  How would you define “file sharing”? How is that the same or different from “file document storage”? Is one predominant application of SharePoint a file document storage system? (AND I am tacking on this separate question : How does SharePoint file sharing differ from a normal file system?)

A:  Although some may argue that there are technical differences between file sharing and file document storage (comments welcome), based on the tone of the question, I am inclined to answer: file sharing and file document storage are basically the same functionality. File sharing is typically used to denote common access (sharing) of files over a network, usually following a peer-to-peer model. (This is the big difference between file sharing and a simple file system – the ability to share files without replication.)  And, yes, based on the survey responses as well as my general, observations, the MOST predominate application of SharePoint is file sharing/ file document storage.

Q:  Where is the best place on the Internet to get governance information about SharePoint deployment?

A:  I do not know if it is ”the best” but the Microsoft SharePoint website has a sub-site focused on governance.  Additionally Microsoft employee Michael Gannotti covers this topic in a recent blog post.

Q:  Does the Oracle Integrated ECM product improve the records management functionality of SharePoint that was not positively viewed in the initial survey?

A: The Oracle ECM product, as is the case with many other ECM and RM products such as those from CA, Open Text, and IBM do provide records management functionality superior to that offered natively in SharePoint, and these product will integrate with SharePoint.

Q: How many of the surveyed organizations were using the RM portion of SharePoint?

A:  The majority of users, 64%, were not using the records management functionality within SharePoint at all. 5% of the surveyed organizations were using the records management capability within SharePoint exclusively as their enterprise records system. Another 6% were using it to a significant degree. The remaining 25% said they used it “somewhat.”

Q:  Beyond employee facing portal, what’s the next killer application for SharePoint?

A:  Based on the survey data, there is no other clear front-runner for a SharePoint killer application, beyond employee facing portals.  Although used in many applications, survey respondents predominately positioned SharePoint as a minor role within the business application.  Findings such as this one led to the observations that SharePoint is very much positioned as a component to an overall ECM strategy (assuming of course you have a strategy – and issue I will address more directly in the next post – I promise.)

Q:  Would you say that SharePoint is more for a medium to large environment rather than the small company?

A:  No, one of the strengths of SharePoint is the (initially anyway) low barrier to implementation.  While the collaboration and file sharing issues may scale very differently for a large company, many small companies can still benefit from such functionality.

Q:  [NOTE:  Several questions from multiple individuals have been grouped together here.]
Is Microsoft planning to fix security issues? Do you believe MOSS will bring any value to these findings with significant product improvements in the next 1-3 years or will it continue as is? We are in the process of migrating our SP 2003 sites to MOSS. I am finding the improvements in MOSS (over SP 2003) to be significant. Do you feel that Microsoft is attempting to fill some of the ‘gaps’ that were mentioned in the presentation?

A:  I am not privy to any Microsoft internal strategy for future releases of SharePoint.  But I am sure most who watch this space would agree that yes, Microsoft has definitely improved the efficiency and functionality of SharePoint over the last 2 years, and will continue to do so. SharePoint is a strategic and fundamental product for Microsoft and given the number of users already on board, it would be unlikely that Microsoft would abandon the product or put it in mothballs.  Note that the FAST search tool that was acquired my Microsoft approximately a year ago, was recently integrated the SharePoint product set into (though not embedded yet). There are also a host of partners that are adding functionality to SharePoint.

Q: To what extent is SharePoint being offered as an on-demand solution vs., installation on the user’s servers?

A:  SharePoint is available as both licensed software and as an on demand or SaaS solution from both Microsoft and third parties. Among the organizations that took the survey, 30% were using SharePoint in a hosted solution capacity.

Q: Does SharePoint provide version control capability when documentation has been modified?

A:  Yes. Among survey respondents, 20% did not use the document management (which would include version control) functionality provided in SharePoint, and 49% used it somewhat.

Q: Exactly how would a BPEL process interact with the SharePoint repository – is it an API, a SharePoint web part, etc.?

A:  BPEL (Business Process Execution Language ) for Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is an add-on for Windows Workflow Foundation in the .NET Framework 3.0. The download is aimed at software developers.  (Also see Paul Andrew’s blog,  he is a Technical Product Manager on the Sharepoint team at Microsoft Corporation. )

OK – enough for now.  More to come – so stay tuned…

You may still listen to the recorded webinar during which many other questions were answered and issues discussed.

Q:  Is SharePoint a hot short-term fad or will we see it in a prevalent presence 10-15 years from now?

A:  I am reluctant to make predictions that go out 10 – 15 years.  Far too much can occur to really have genuine insights regarding the fate of SharePoint over a decade+ from now.  That said, however, I will say that I do not believe that SharePoint is a “fad”.  Far too many organizations have invested time and money into it for it to simply go away like yesterday’s fashions.  Moreover, Microsoft has much riding on this product/platform, and Microsoft is a force to be reckoned with.  There is every indication that they will continue to support and enhance SharePoint.  So while I am reluctant to speculate on what SharePoint will look like 15 years from now, I will state that I believe that it will continue to grow in scope and capability for the foreseeable future, and that it will continue to have a presence in most global organizations.  We will see much market activity amongst ECM solution providers to complement SharePoint rather than compete head-to-head, and we will see Microsoft making improvements to SharePoint.  What will it look like in 15 years – cannot say, but at the very minimum, remnants of SharePoint applications will remain 15 years from now.

Q:  Is SharePoint like another Lotus Notes Virus?
A:  OK, I am guessing that this was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but as they say, many a truw word [and question] are said in jest.  So let me answer it. This question is perhaps related to the earlier ones regarding the competitive nature between Notes and MOSS.  As I said in the last post, Notes users who have built complex and critical applications in Notes, do not yet appear to be actively migrating them to SharePoint with any degree of consistency and momentum.  At the lower end of Notes applications, yes, SharePoint is a serious alternative that is replacing many Notes databases. If for no other reason, SharePoint is to be commended to applying pressure on IBM and its Notes product line. In both cases, however, the relative immaturity of the products, as full-fledged ECM solutions still warrants, for many organizations an investment in complementary products, and certainly much customization and integration work.

Q:  What are the scalability issues in SharePoint and would you recommend SharePoint to be used as Document Management system, where collaboration is not primary requirement.

A:  There are several scalability issues with SharePoint.  Based on the responses to the survey, the greatest amongst these are performance issues when increasing quantity or size of the document repository, lack of support for complex document architectures, and the administration associated with larger installations.  Based on feedback from users, I would not recommend using SharePoint as an ECM solution in cases in which internal collaboration is not a primary requirement.  Again, internal collaboration and knowledge sharing were ranked as the primary strengths of SharePoint and the number one application amongst its users.  To leverage SharePoint in a situation focused on other applications (for example, an external customer facing portal, complex internal records and content security management) would be a case of misapplying technology.  These features are not SharePoint strengths (yet).  Satisfaction ranks high amongst those using it for internal collaboration, and then satisfaction levels significantly drop (to say nothing of the need for customization and integration complexity.)
Q:  What are the key functionality weaknesses that make SharePoint a weak solution for records management.

A:  Two main issues.  First, the records management functionality, known as the Records Center is a MOSS component and does not function in Windows SharePoint Services (WSS).  Thus, right off the bat it requires further investment beyond SharePoint itself. Secondly, the Records Center is a platform, not a near-turnkey records application like that available from products such as CA, HP/Tower, Autonomy/Meridio, OpenText, IBM and EMC Documentum.  Most records functionality has to be built using the toolset.  There is no auto-declaration of records for example, nor rendition control or clawbacks. SharePoint provides only the most basic of records management features. Consider that MOSS Records Center is not DOD 5015 compliant out of the box, but requires a “resource kit” to make it compliant.  If you attempt to download the resource kit from the Microsoft site you receive the following message:
“This additional download provides an easy way to learn about the pack while deciding if it is useful for an organization. It is not for production use. Please work with your account manager to engage a partner that has been trained on the DoD 5015.2 Resource Kit to support your DoD implementation.” – enough said.
Q:  When or at which cross point is SharePoint expected to seriously compete with other ECM packages.

A:  I would say that that time has already come.  Granted, SharePoint still lacks all of the functionality that is bundled in the leading ECM suites, but consider that each of these products has a SharePoint integration story to tell.  The point is that while SharePoint may not compete feature to feature, it does compete “enough” to be positioned as a viable component of an ECM strategy, as we have discussed, especially for collaborative internal knowledge sharing environments and portals.  As Microsoft continues to enhance SharePoint, and there is every indication that they will, it will only become more competitive.  Indeed, it is not outside the realm of possibility that Microsoft may acquire a “full-featured” content management system, and leap frog its competitors.  Although they have not yet integrated it into SharePoint, recall that last year, Microsoft leapfrogged into enterprise search with the acquisition of FAST.
Q:  Thoughts on limitations with SharePoint enterprise search and how FAST might come into play in the future?

A:  I purposely listed this question to follow the one above, in which I used the FAST acquisition to show how Microsoft can leapfrog into targeted ECM markets through acquisition.  Yes, the acquisition of FAST made Microsoft “a contender” in the enterprise search market, competing with products such as Endeca, Autonomy, Vivisimo and Google.  To date, FAST functionality has not yet been tightly integrated into the SharePoint environment, but that is inevitable, and when that occurs, the features and functions of FAST will catapult SharePoint enterprise search functionality, positioning it  amongst the leaders.
Q:  Would you identify SharePoint as an Internal Social Network?
A:  Yes.  SharePoint does not provide all of the functionality that comprises social networking (e.g. social tagging and social network analysis), but it clearly has some of it.  For example, SharePoint provides Wikis and Blogs, “My Sites”, and the ability to track and share declared groups of colleagues.  You may recall from the webinar that most SharePoint functionality gets a “good” rating.  That would pertain to this question as well.  The Internal Social Networking capabilities are not leading edge, but for many teams – good enough.

Q:  Are you seeing competition from open source solutions in same area?

A: Yes, and the most visible is Alfresco.
Q:  How many respondents didn’t use SharePoint because they already have another solution in place?

A:  I will answer this question in two ways.  First, using the survey that was the focus of the webinar.  You may recall, that amongst 592 responding organizations, 33% were NOT using SharePoint.  Of those, only 5% indicated they were not using SharePoint because of a preference for another product. Not a conclusive answer. Because of the way the question and answer were worded, I cannot tell if the preferred product was already in house (the nature of your question), or if a new purchase was made in lieu of SharePoint.  With that said, I will also share my observation based on working with many organizations over the last 2 years. In most cases where SharePoint is being used, other ECM products precede it.  SharePoint is being embraced in many cases, not as a replacement, but an alternative.  As SharePoint matures, this attitude or approach is beginning to change.

Q:  With SharePoint are you restricting yourself to Microsoft platform?

A:  Virtually every major vendor has a SharePoint integration story and strategy, so no, you are not restricting yourself strictly to a Microsoft-only platform. But, with that said, obviously, as an organization becomes more dependent upon SharePoint they are  becoming more aligned with a Microsoft platform.

OK that’s it for this post. You are probably tiring of reading, and I certainly am of typing.  More to come so stay tuned …

The focus of this posting (and more to follow), is on the questions that were asked during the webinar that went unanswered due to time.  As previously stated, there were over 100 questions asked.  I have removed those that were answered during the webinar and have in some cases merged similar and related questions together and eliminated redundant questions.  In this post I address the first 11 questions, in no particular order. So here goes:

Q:   Integrating SharePoint with ECM for archiving and/or other ECM capabilities… how many are doing this, why, what ECM capabilities are they using, and what are the technical, business, political issues that customers face in doing this?

A:  WOW, this is a loaded question – perhaps a good place to start.  The survey did not provide direct answers to each of these questions.  Based on the survey responses, however, it is fair to say that the great majority are integrating SharePoint with other systems for complementary ECM functionality. This statement is based on the fact that aside from file sharing and portal platform, respondents indicated that other SharePoint-native ECM functionality is only somewhat used or not used at all (exact percentages will be available in the report.)  Additionally, most respondents indicated that integration was a major hurdle to deployment which suggests that most SharePoint implementations involve integration – likely to some degree for complementary ECM functionality.  Based on survey ranking of SharePoint functionality (level of quality) and anecdotal evidence from speaking with users, it is safe to think that archival and records management are primary examples of the type of functionality that is integrated into SharePoint, versus the native SharePoint functionality.  As for the technical, business and political issues customers face in doing this.  Clearly those will run the gambit.  The survey did not address this matter, but in my working with various organizations I can tell you that there is no trend, other than typically one or more of these issues will be encountered.  The technical issues are many – too many to get into here.  Just recall that users pointed to integration and customization as the number one most underestimated cost and reason for project delays.  In many cases it behooves an organization that wishes to augment or complement SharePoint to seek out products that can demonstrate preexisting integration.  Business and political battles can be quasi-technical.  I have witnessed more than one company in which business desires to go “outside” SharePoint face strong opposition form IT that has declared “SharePoint or nothing” as their strategy.  There is also the possibility of having to defend why certain functions are even necessary.  Oh yes, there was one other facet to this question:  “Why do organizations undertake integrating ECM systems with SharePoint?”.  As you can imagine based on my commentary so far – not for the fun of it.  Seriously – there are usually two reasons why. 1.  because there is significant ECM legacy and there is therefore a desire to integrate it into the SharePoint emerging applications so as to avoid silos. and/or 2. While there is a desire/decision to go forward with SharePoint, certain business needs (e.g. records control) dictate that a higher level of functionality is required than that provided innately in SharePoint.

Q:  How important is it to conduct an Information Architecture design phase of Sharepoint implementation for document management and how do you know if you got it right?

A:  What I like about this question is that to a certain degree it highlights the level of naivite that exists regarding not only SharePoint but ECM in general.  SharePoint is not a panacea.  It does not provide any turnkey solutions that address all of your organizations ECM needs out of the box. So, in my opinion, it is very important to develop a strategy for its application, which should include the development of an enterprise Information Architecture.  This is true of ANY ECM system.  An Information Architecture should,as a best practice, be used as a foundation to any ECM  system, especially one that is leveraged across multiple business applications, users and repositories.  To this end SharePoint does not offer anything that any other ECM does not.  The Information Architecture is required to ensure a centralized and rationalized approach to capturing, tagging and storing content to facilitate access and findability, and in the best case drive desired end results through the aces to content.

SharePoint does not circumvent that issue with one important exception.  In some cases the introduction of an ECM system may be used as a way  to help drive user interest and generate input into a strategic deployment.  This is often the case with SharePoint because it is simple to deploy at a elementary level. (In fact the proliferation of un-managed siloed SharePoint environments is a common problem in some organizations.) in such cases it would not be critical to precede the release of these early ECM/SharePoint applications with an Information Architecture. It needs to be appreciated however, that when and if a decision is made to move forward in a more formalized and managed ECM capacity, that then the effort should be preceded by the development of an Information Architecture, for all the reasons cited above.

Q: Are you seeing a large amount of Notes to MOSS migrations?

A:  There were actually a few questions that allude to Lotus Notes.  One reason for this may be my mention of Notes twice in my presentation.  The first was early on when I stated that I had not seen such market excitement and confusion since  the advent of Lotus Notes.  The second was when I made a comment similar to: “some of the confusion stems from the fact that like Notes, back in the early 90s,  many today view SharePoint as a solution – when in reality it is a platform.  What can you do in Notes – what can you do in SharePoint/  Given enough time, budget and gumption – just about anything.” I reiterate this statement  because it relates to my answer to this question. No, I have not seen much migration of Notes applications to SharePoint.  I believe the main reason  for this is because the Notes applications that continue to exist in most organizations today are not remnants of simple file sharing applications.  They are more complex applications that have pushed the functionality of Notes using a fair degree of customization and integration to meet very specific business application needs.  Therefore migration away from them takes some serious planning. They will not likely simply port over to SharePoint. Where I do see organizations migrating from Notes, these applications are typically being migrated to high-end ECM systems.  In such cases, in evaluating SharePoint as a replacement many experience deja vu, i.e. a need to develop much functionality through extensive integration and customization, and as a result are reluctant to so so.

To a lesser degree, another reason Notes applications are not readily bieng migrated to SharePoint is that organizations that are still significantly using Notes are often IBM-centric shops, and therefore shy away form Microsoft-centric solutions.

Q:  How were survey respondents using SharePoint? In intranet deployments? Other things?

A:  This question is answered in detail in the report – so stay tuned.  Suffice to say for now that, the great majority of respondents indicated they were predominately using SharePoint as an internal portal (i.e. corporate intranet), supporting file sharing and collaboration.

Q:  Is there a reason why SharePoint is not used much for document management, BPM, Search and other Somewhat used and NOT used categories you have listed?

A:  The answer to this question lies, I believe in the relatively low grades that SharePoint functionality got concerning this type of functionality.  Aside from file sharing and internal portal development, most users of SharePoint functionality ranked the functionality performance between fair and good. In applications where such functionality is important, organizations apparently are choosing to use complementary sources.

Q: What is the difference between File Sharing and Collaboration?

A:  Technically this question is not SharePoint specific – but will get answered anyway.  File sharing is a subset or single approach to collaboration. File sharing is the ability to create a common library.  Collaboration, by definition goes beyond that to include the ability to engage in dialogue/debate, co-author content in a dynamic manner, create a social network, broadcast/communicate in real time, perform social tagging, among others.  While users point to file sharing as a strength of SharePoint, SharePoint does provide many of these other approaches to collaboration as well.

Q:  Would you define knowledge management and collaboration, as it relates to a SharePoint application?

A:  This question is similar to the one above – so is the answer. As file sharing is a subset of collaboration, collaboration is a subset of knowledge management. Knowledge management can have a technology component to it, but it is about much more than just technology.  Technology supports and facilitates a knowledge management practice. (I’ll keep this brief, as some know I can go on for pages on the tenets of knowledge management.)  Suffice to say that SharePoint is not a knowledge management system, but its functionality can be used to frame and support such a ecosystem. File sharing, collaboration, wikis, blogs, social networking and process automation are all feature of SharePomt that could be used to specifically support a knowledge management practice.

Q: Our large Government Department is using SP for Web Publishing (Internet / Intranet sites) Do you have any info (statistics) on SharePoint for Web Publishing?

A: Among survey respondents: 10% indicated that SharePoint was exclusively used in their organization for web publishing, 10% used it significantly in this capacity, 34% use it somewhat, and 47% do not use it at all for web publishing. Among the 20% that use it in this capacity, 19% ranked the functionality as very good or better, 44% ranked it has fair-poor, with the remaining 38% ranking the web publishing capabilities as good.

Q: Regarding limited use of SharePoint for external sites, was the main reason license costs? Or was it lack of existing SharePoint Internet sites to use as a best practice model?

A:  The main reason (53%) cited was security concerns.

Q:  We have heard that Sharepoint does not scale effectively for large volumes of documents. Did this also come up in the study results?

A:  Only 30% of those who responded to the survey reported having experience with scaling SharePoint. Of those, 23% reported success. The other 7% ran into problems that caused them to stop their scaling efforts. Among those that did encounter problems with scalability, the most-often cited causes were support for more complex content and greater volumes of content (59%), administration (59%) performance (47%) and supporting more complex applications (42%). (There is more detail on this in the report.

Q: Do you recommend using an archiving solution to archive SharePoint data?

A:  If archival is an important area of functionality for your organization, and the content created and or managed in SharePoint should be subjected to archival, then yes, I woud recommend integrating an archival tool to augment SharePoint.  Such functionality can be acquired in system that provide a wide array of functionality beyond archival (including products from Oracle, EMC, Autonomy,  and Opentext), or systems targeted specifically at archival (including DocAve, CommVault and Syntergy).

Please note that the products cited here are not endorsed or even recommended. They were just the first that came to mind.  Does anyone know of others – or want to share a positive or negative experience with such a product.  All comments and additions are welcomed.)

OK – enough for this post.  But stay tuned, there are many questions left that will be answered.