We're pleased to announce the 3rd e-book in our "8 things" information management series, this one on SharePoint. You can get a free copy by going to http://www.aiim.org/8things.
There are two versions of the book -- 1) an executive summary -- totally free and no registration required; and 2) a full text version, again totally free, but you need to register or login on the AIIM web site.
My thanks to all the 8 things contributors to this e-book. I appreciate your involvement in this project.
Help us spread the word by posting a link or e-mailing the link to your colleagues or tweeting about the book. We would be grateful for the help. Also, feel free to post the executive summary on your own site.
[Note: AIIM will also be releasing a new comprehensive training course on SharePoint later this spring. For advance information, go to AIIM SharePoint Training.]
Some thoughts from my opening essay...
It's a pretty complicated world out there for those seeking to create an information management strategy.
The good news is that there are a lot of content and document options out there. The bad news is that there are a lot of content and document options out there.
Of course, the elephant in the room in a lot of information management discussions is SharePoint. Since its launch, SharePoint 2007 has demonstrated phenomenal growth. Recent AIIM surveys have indicated adoption rates of over 65% across multiple geographical regions and different verticals, and Microsoft is positioning SharePoint as the "Information Operating System" for organizations. It seems like many organizations using Microsoft products will over the next few years implement SharePoint somewhere. And the elephant will get even bigger with the release of SharePoint 2010 later this year.
In many ways, "SharePoint" has become somewhat of a noun in the content space (like "Kleenex" for tissues or "Xerox" for copying), describing for many end users a cluster of functionality that begins as a replacement for shared drives for Office documents and a collaboration platform and extends into other more complex areas as the platform spreads. Even competitors to SharePoint in the collaboration space tend to increasingly use SharePoint as the reference point, essentially saying, "We can do 'SharePoint-y' things, but in a different infrastructure." A number of the solution providers who are focused on transactional content and the mission critical processes associated with this content are increasingly positioning their capabilities as the "stuff" that SharePoint does not do out of the box.
All of this is transforming the document, content, and records management industry. SharePoint 2010 will consolidate the ECM repository business. A great deal of collaboration-driven and Office application content in organizations will be housed in SharePoint repositories.
At the same time, there is a growing realization in organizations of both the perils and opportunities associated with constructing a strategy on a particular vendor stack. For example, we are seeing a growing interest in open source content solutions. This is particularly evident in Europe (witness the European Commission white paper on open source solutions), but is increasingly the case in the United States (witness the recent decision to host the White House site on Drupal). Tom O'Reilly offered these comments on the implications of the Drupal decision: "While open source is already widespread throughout the government, its adoption by the White House will almost certainly give permission for much wider uptake...There are huge opportunities for open source, web 2.0, and new media companies in government, but there are also challenges reaching that market."
The more "traditional" ECM players (e.g., IBM, Oracle, EMC, Hyland) increasingly focus their value on managing a broad continuum of content that often includes -- but is not limited to -- information in SharePoint repositories. They focus their robust capabilities on mission critical content intensive processes, imaging and capture, and records management and e-discovery, areas that are still relatively immature within SharePoint. These solutions typically entered organizations within a single department and then spread. Early implementations were focused on the needs of document-intensive process owners and specialists rather than a broad base of general knowledge workers.
The larger of these companies (and Microsoft as well) are increasingly focused on the blurring lines between structured and unstructured information and the desire of users to manage all of this content and information, regardless if its type. The smaller ECM companies are increasingly focused on departmental and process specific document management and building their value on their low cost, ease of adoption, and domain expertise.
I hope you enjoy the e-book.
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