Sharepoint 2007 – Consultant Ready Software
Posted on December 27, 2008
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Sharepoint is consultant-ready, not customer-ready.
I stumbled across this phrase in an article but for the life of me I cannot remember where I read the damned thing. The articles spoke about how Out of the Box (OOTB) Sharepoint 2007 can be used by technical consultants to deliver high value, low effort sites in days rather than months. The “not customer ready” caveated companies trying to go-it-alone rather than bring in specialist consultants to assist in the smooth delivery of their initial Sharepoint projects. But when your dealing with enterprise level content/document/digital asset/record or and other enterprise level management system, that’s they norm right? But for Sharepoint, the powerful sell is just how far a consultant can point-and-click their way to rolling out web-sites.
The Pub Folks: Go! Stay on the road keep clear of the moors.
The Boys: Right, thank you.
The Pub Folks: Beware of the moon lads.
Now of course they didn’t stick to the road and that was the start of the whole bloody mess so wonderfully brought to you by An American Werewolf in London. Again, this has always been the warning from other consultants and non-Sharepoint vendors about OOTB Sharepoint. As soon as you need to do something that takes you off the path, that’s when the fun begins.
I decided to dig a little deeper into this. Initial thoughts are that yes, Sharepoint does have a nice point-and-click environment. Running on Windows 2008 Server and a decent client side setup with Vista or Window Servers 2008 on the desktop with Office 2007, Sharepoint, particularly around document management does have a very compelling story. However, when you need to do small things, likes apply different site styles or setup up form-based authentication, you brought back to earth with a big Microsoft-style bump. From a need web-based interface to your favourite text editor jammed packed with oodles of XML everywhere. That’s why you need the consultant. Point-and-Click takes you only so far.
Also there is the content. What happens if we need to access content held within Sharepoint from non-Microsoft based platforms and/or content applications? This is where the integration with Sharepoint warlines are drawn. Of course, there is a third party market for plugins and connectors to make your dreams come true, and more recently standards for achieving this. However, you can safely say that for all but the trivial sites, you are going to veer off the choosen path laid so carefully by OOTB Sharepoint. And when you do, be prepared, because no two journeys are the same.
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