What I Think the Next Version of SharePoint Will Look Like

Microsoft SharePoint is a very popular topic with our clients: what it's useful for, how they should govern it, what its gotchas are, and so on. Needless to say, a common question is, "What do you think is coming in the next version of SharePoint?"

My typical response is to chuckle and say, "Beats me. Microsoft hasn't told me." (Which they haven't. I got their vision view 18 months ago, but nothing specific recently. That will probably change in the next several months as the next version of SharePoint rolls into beta.) However, after saying that, I then go on to say, "But that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion. Here's an educated guess at what I think will be in the next version. This takes into account how Microsoft thinks about the world, current product holes that need to be fixed, and weaving together disconnected comments made by Microsoft."

So when clients ask, "What's in the next version of SharePoint?" here's what I've been telling them.

The Vision is Moving to Ubiqitous Information
SharePoint 2007 and Office 2007 were about binding the two products together: Office was the runway into SharePoint, and SharePoint is the portal for information workers. When fending off productivity suites such as OpenOffice.org and IBM Lotus Symphony, Microsoft counterpunches with, "Why do that? You lose the synergy with SharePoint." When you add Microsoft's cloud initiative (Azure) to the mix, SharePoint 14 will be all about gathering the information that information workers need no matter where the information resides or where the worker resides. Office and SharePoint integration will probably become tighter, but the integration points will become broader as well: the cloud, mobile workers and devices, business intelligence, etc.

Consolidated Administration of Multiple Server Farms
In terms of administration, SharePoint 2007 still shows its departmental portal heritage: the server farm is the highest point of integration. Enterprises fielding multiple server farms have to manage them with separate consoles. Third parties have rushed in to fill this void, and at the moment Microsoft points to them when customers bring up the issue. While that's not a bad bridge strategy for several years, at this point Microsoft needs to step up and offer uber administration capabilities if it wants to continue to fuel SharePoint growth. This should include not only general administration capabilities, but also the unifying of taxonomies (a la SchemaLogic) and site design.

The Line Between In-House SharePoint and Hosted SharePoint Will Blur
Microsoft offers both software and SaaS (SharePoint Online) versions of SharePoint. In fact, it recently announced that SharePoint Online was now available outside the U.S. At the moment, the two offerings are somewhat different--for example, enterprises can customize the version they're running in-house more than the online version. However, over time those differences will diminish, to where an enterprise will be able to sign up for a SharePoint license and be able to move the systems around with relative ease (60% in-house/40% in the cloud today; 50% in-house/50% in the cloud two months from now).

SharePoint Search Will Be Bolstered
On this point, Microsoft has been more forthcoming. The company has been working at folding some of FAST's search technology into SharePoint and is now talking about two forthcoming products: FAST Search for SharePoint (search behind the firewall) and FAST Search for Internet Business (search within a company's web site). The Microsoft press release is here; Larry Cannell's blog post about FAST Search for SharePoint is here. The UI within SharePoint Search will probably improve (a la third parties such as Coveo) and people search will probably improve as well.

Hopefully, Social Software Will Improve
The blogs and wikis that ship with SharePoint 2007 have all the earmarks of a last-minute addition: enough to be hawk the features on the datasheet, but not much else. Because of that, SharePoint customers have been doing one of three things in this area: (1) making do (usually enterprises that have never used a blog or wiki before), (2) using a third-party vendor that integrates with SharePoint (e.g., Atlassian or Socialtext), or (3) going for a social software platform, such as Jive. In short, Microsoft is losing business here, and it will improve its social software offering to fix that problem (I hope).

Those are my thoughts; it will be interesting to see how closely they map to reality a year from now.

Comments

[careprost]

Really great post, Thank you for sharing This knowledge.Thank you very much for sharing this knowledge.this graph really conveyed the part which i was looking for.

[right school for CNA]

The intense emotions, the groups of vibrant people, and the sense of togetherness I witness at these events inspire my best work.

[auto insurance companies]

Microsoft's shrepoint is one of the popular item about which people love to talk.What comes in the next updates of sharepoint is a common question we all are curious about.thanks for sharing your thinking with us.

[Viagra]

Erectile dysfunction, generic viagra, 322450, [URL=http://www.genericviagrawww.com/]generic viagra[/URL], b)8)(, http://www.genericviagrawww.com/ Viagra, afeunb.

[Seo Services India]

There are may person searching about that now they will find enough resources by your post,

[Generic Viagra]

Grande informazione, hai un blog meraviglioso e un ottimo articolo!

[new era hats]

I also wanted to say that our oldest daughter bought us a new stove and it is just wonderful because even though it came with loads of instructions, it is very satisfying to use, just push buttons and mix up your recipe and place it in the oven and viola, wonderful, unburnt food...what a glorious feeling it gives me. It is a most magnificent jewel of our kitchen. It will be a pleasure to use when the holidays are upon us. My husband and I are very happy about our new acquisition!

[Generic Viagra]

Vänligen en mer inlägg om det .. jag behöver den här artikeln för att slutföra mitt uppdrag i kollegiet, och den har samma tema med din artikel. Tack, bra aktie.!!!

[Handwriting analyst]

Very significant article for us ,I think the representation of this article is actually superb one. This is my first visit to your site.

[killy]

Love your new blog. Can't wait to see what you write about. Go for it!

[kaycee]

I do not see any big difference with the old SharePoint and the new old. Actually, I prefer the older version than this one.

[Generic Viagra]

Es bueno estar visitando su blog de nuevo, se ha pasado meses para mí. Bueno este artículo que he estado esperando durante tanto tiempo..

[Generic Drugs Exporter]

I have wanted to learn more about particular topics, but not many websites would help me out in informing me the way I expected. This left me with many question, but after reading your article, I got an answer to all my questions. You are too cool dude!!!

[Kamagra]

I '
ben blij voor deze nuttige uitstekende pagina, dit is een vorm van onderwerp dat mij in stand, hoewel uit heb het day.We 'normaal hoort de laatste tijd willen de buurt van in je web-site rechts onmiddellijk afte

[Buy Cymbalta Online]

Je viens de découvrir votre site et je voulais vous dire que j'ai vraiment apprécié la navigation de votre posts.In tout cas je vais vous abonnant à votre blog et j'espère que vous publiez à nouveau prochainement

[Periactin]

I '
m satisfeito desta páxina benéfica excelente; esta é unha forma de suxeito que me sostén, aínda que fóra ve a day.We 'foi normalmente oído ultimamente querendo preto no seu web-site dereita inmediatamente after

[xanax]

Really great post, Thank you for sharing This knowledge.Excellently written article, if only all bloggers offered the same level of content as you, the internet would be a much better place. Please keep it up!

[marca personal]

found good piece of information here, Thank you for sharing these helpful post it is very interesting and read worthy. Keep these informative post coming!

[Cheap NFL jerseys]

The race is coming, When boys are worry about jersey the girl give him a surprise, he was moved and determined to win the game.The game boy put on the Jerseys he looks more handsome she looked at the boy running in the playground full of vigor, her eyes full of tears.The boy didn't let her disappeared, he won the championship. They are hug to each other in together happiness.

[r4i]

Thanks for the insight. You are absolutely right.

[buy online percocet]

interesting Article. Hoping that you will continue posting an article having a useful information.

[iPhone Developer]

Great informative post and i really likes your information, most of the peoples are likes your blog because its having the good knowledge. thanks for your good informative post.

[find doctor]

Thanks for the post, its really containing the descent knowledge and I really like the blog.

[iPhone Application Developer]

Now, I am definitely going to save this to my own files, just in case;) Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[עמדת עבודה]

It's all about third parties have rushed to fill the void, and now Microsoft points for them when customers approach the subject.