If you think nobody wants SharePoint, think again
by Volker Weber
Launch event for Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 combined with the SharePoint Konferenz 2008 in Frankfurt draws a crowd of 7500 customers and partners. Sold out for months, this event has been the largest I have seen in Germany.
The photo shows an overfilled breakout session in a room which was way too small. Organization of the event is a mess. Session schedule does not contain track numbers or rooms. Rooms are designated by tracks numbers. Catering was running out of plates and cutlery, PA announcements are way too loud. Best backpack so far though. ;-) And each visitor gets a full version of all announced products.
Another photo from Wednesday in a larger room:
Comments
Yes, but did they have an orchestra playing Led Zep's Kashmir?
Not likely.
I'm evaluating SharePoint in a project right now. It may not be the greatest product ever devised, but (as someone wearing yellow since the early nineties) I was quite amazed at what it can do. (And a little worried about what it might do in soon-to-come versions.)
In short: A positive surprise if you look at it in a neutral way, but slightly uncomforting regarding how Redmond is catching up... finally.
While I'm sure many were developers there to learn about programmability (VS 2008 is compelling for long time VS programmers, and SharePoint now has some programmability), it is still amazing to me to see the draw of the brand. So many people converging in one place to learn, in a nutshell, "where to put their stuff".
I'm heading to the same conference here in the states - first week in March, here in Seattle. They've also got sessiosn on SQL 2008/VS 2008 and using it with MOSS 2007. As someone who has also bled yellow since the early 90's, they do have a pretty cool platform.
Support-wise, though, I don't get the sense that they have a real handle on this thing. There are also, at least from the admin side, things about configuring this beast that are much harder than they have to be.
Having been to a number of these as well I can say they do a great job and the free software is the huge incentive usually.
But Sharepoint does have some issues, especially backwards compatible ones which is why you must keep running moss 2 and then 3 to use older data.
But maybe they all went just to ask about Yahoo :-)
Are those the same partners that packed the national ISO committees regarding the approval of OOXML?
No wonder they were overfilling a breakout session. :-)
Greg, support (here in Germany) is rumored to be a plain mess with months of backlog. I've been told this by various sources.
And Keith: yes! Microsoft is still the undisputed master of Rip-And-Replace. But they call it 'migration' ;-)
Still... if you have the environment (Server 2003R2, Office 2007) and some serious cash to burn, MOSS 2007 might be for you. My current customer obviously has. So I have to deal with it...
I've told some Sharepoint-fanboys that I'd like to talk to them again in 10 years when they're trying to run their now-new SP applications on the then-current Sharepoint server. If Sharepoint is still around, that is.
Considering the way Microsoft has been treating their Software Assurance customers, 10 years should only be about 2 or 3 releases of new Sharepoint goodness.
Plus, I really love Sharepoint's 4MB CSS files. Get one file and be done with it. For life. There must be stuff defined in there to do everything CSS related one could ever dream up.
Re rip-and-replace == migration. Huh? I'm running the software I want, I don't to friggin' migrate, I just want to update this one server here. And, if possible, I'd prefer to not touch the rest of my infrastructure for now.
Joerg, you're right. Upgrade is exactly what I meant, I'm still wondering why I settled for 'migration' instead. It's not monday. Friday neither. Guess I need to reboot brain 1.0 :-)
Are they showing Sharepoint 2007? It's a lot better than 2003, and VS.Net 2008 has a lot more hooks into it. If only ASP.Net 2.0's AJAX didn't suck like a Dyson it would be more useful.
I would be interested to know how many people are there because they're confused (like I was at the last two Lotusphere's), how many are there to kick the tires of the new stuff and get the free stuff, and how many people are just there because it's the place to see and be seen.
