(PHILADELPHIA, PA – J. Boye) Insights from CMS Watch founder, and co-author of the CMS Watch Report, Tony Byrne.
Tony Byrne, CMS Watch:
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SharePoint is part product, part platform, part ecosystem – a collection of technologies that have varying degrees of finish
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Under-reported and under-appreciated dimension of SharePoint: built solidly on (almost) latest .NET platform
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Be cautious of developer/integrator enthusiasm
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Keep Implementation of SharePoint Simple (KISS)
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Embrace configuration, some customization and integration, avoid extension (e.g. building custom applications, etc.)
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The latest marketing from Microsoft is “to really finish or complete MOSS you should look to external partners.”
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Oxcite, 3rd party open source blog tool for .NET (not SharePoint)
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Just because a firm is a Microsoft partner, doesn't mean they have SharePoint expertise
Cautions:
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Some MS partners / vendors are in over their heads
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Not all are experts in all SP services
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Temptation to over-engineer
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Experienced integrators are in high-demand
Caveats:
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Test performance, reliability, and security features carefully
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Contrast software with “consulting-ware” (developed once for a client and re-sold)
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Remember: its not just another module, but another vendor
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Many partners fervently hope that MS will buy them, but Redmond typically recreates rather than acquires
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This can be very inconvenient for you down the road with MS upgrades SharePoint
Reading this blog post gives me deja vu.
We launch our customized SharePoint intranet for 6000+ employees in a week from this Monday. We actually used all in house resources: 1 (100% dedicated) strategist/biz analyst; 4 (50 to 75% dedicated) IT resources; 2 (50% dedicated) Web developers; and 1 (5 to 10% dedicated) creative designer.
It's definitely frustrating to work within SharePoint limits, but we were able to find workarounds for most of our barriers. The pain points were definitely worth the ability to get Web analytics, search and search analytics, a basic CMS, etc. out of the box with SharePoint – as opposed to paying third party vendors for the functionality. We were able to build our new redesigned Intranet at zero cost due to the fact that SharePoint was already installed as a team site/project site tool for employees.
It's been a little less than two years in the works from planning to launch – 11 days and counting until launch!
I like the guerilla marketing idea for communicating. We are using our pilot testers as 'messengers' and 'experts', signage, and video commercial parodies that employees can watch on our existing intranet.
Hi Christy, great sharing and insight – thank you. Do you have a case study on that you'd like to share? Care to write one for IntranetBlog.com?
Regards,
Toby