This morning's New York Times has
an important article for all CMS developers -- a discussion of what and where MS SharePoint is. Of particular note is SP's success while MS sales overall have fallen for the first time in history.
“SharePoint is saving Microsoft’s Office business even as it paves the way for a new era of Microsoft lock-in,” said Matt Asay, an executive at Alfresco, which makes an open-source content management system. “It is simultaneously the most interesting and dangerous Microsoft technology, and has largely caught its competitors napping.”
Apparently, MS will be releasing a new version next year and Ballmer is quoted as saying SharePoint could be the next MS operating system.
Microsoft has managed to undercut even the panoply of open-source companies playing in the business software market by giving away a free basic license to SharePoint if they already have Windows Server. “It’s a brilliant strategy that mimics open source in its viral, free distribution, but transcends open source in its ability to lock customers into a complete, not-free-at-all Microsoft stack - one for which they’ll pay more and more the deeper they get into SharePoint,” Mr. Asay said.
The article mentions a Norwegian start-up,
Fast Search and Transfer, as the key to increased SharePoint search capability. Those crafty Norwegians are everywhere :-)
1 comment:
FAST was not exactly a start-up before they were acquired by Microsoft, but an established uber-expensive sell you more-than-you-need "enterprisey" search vendor that was established and buying up dead/dying competitors for thier customers (e.g. Convera).
Microsoft bought FAST, but also other search technology companies. When they acquired Powerset, they arguably bought a start-up.
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