How Does Your Organization Use SharePoint?

For those of you unfamiliar with Microsoft SharePoint, it is a collection of products and technologies include browser-based collaboration and a document-management platform. At least that’s what the Wikipedia entry says; I gave up after a few minutes of searching for an official definition. But official definitions notwithstanding, many organizations are using SharePoint, which raises the question of how they are using it.

George Dearing called my attention to a study by AIIM and Oracle, reported in CMS Wire as “Study Finds SharePoint Primarily Used for File Sharing“, that tries to answer this question.

Their key findings:

• 83% of survey respondents currently use, or are planning to use, SharePoint
• 47% of current SharePoint users use it primarily for file sharing
• few (no number given)  use it for complex business processes, records management or digital asset management

Given the increasingly tight integration of SharePoint and FAST, Microsoft’s enterprise search offering, my interest in how people use SharePoint is a bit more than idle curiosity.

At Endeca, we use Alfresco as a content management system, but of course we use our own dog food when it co…

For those of you unfamiliar with Microsoft SharePoint, it is a collection of products and technologies include browser-based collaboration and a document-management platform. At least that’s what the Wikipedia entry says; I gave up after a few minutes of searching for an official definition. But official definitions notwithstanding, many organizations are using SharePoint, which raises the question of how they are using it.

George Dearing called my attention to a study by AIIM and Oracle, reported in CMS Wire as “Study Finds SharePoint Primarily Used for File Sharing“, that tries to answer this question.

Their key findings:

• 83% of survey respondents currently use, or are planning to use, SharePoint
• 47% of current SharePoint users use it primarily for file sharing
• few (no number given)  use it for complex business processes, records management or digital asset management

Given the increasingly tight integration of SharePoint and FAST, Microsoft’s enterprise search offering, my interest in how people use SharePoint is a bit more than idle curiosity.

At Endeca, we use Alfresco as a content management system, but of course we use our own dog food when it comes to search. I’m always curious to learn more what it’s like behind other people’s firewalls, and I hope some of you will indulge me.

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