thoughts on sharepoint

Posted by Jake Good
on Dec 11, 05

I swear… some people equate SharePoint to Robitussin



Chris Rock had it right… Daddy, I broke my leg! “Here, put some Robitussin on it… that’s right, let the Robitesum sink in there.”



Technology Consultants have it wrong… “Need a live document, bug tracking system, or quick collaboration device… here’s SharePoint”.



Don’t get me wrong, SharePoint can do a lot of great things… It can store your documents, it can put pretty pictures of your secretary up on an intranet, and it can even spit out email alerts when you change your “How To Make Your Employees Happy” document…



but it can’t do everything.



There are lots of other technologies outside of SharePoint to get things done the right way…



Just remember: developers don’t think in documents.

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  1. mike h – Dec 11 05 @ 02:34AM
    The majority of my development projects have involved SharePoint for the past two years. I've seen SharePoint get used and abused incorrectly more often than being used correctly. I think that because WSS comes out of the box with Windows 2003 Server, businesses look to WSS as a very cheap way to address business problems. Why use development staff to build a web site for you when you can create your own with WSS in about 7 seconds?

    The pitfalls are obvious. It's tempting to use WSS lists as a relational database. It's tempting to use WSS lists for dealing with complex business processes and problems (e.g. bug tracking). There are dozens of ways that I've seen SharePoint incorrectly used, or used where it could only solve the problem partially.

    Microsoft really pushed the use of WSS and sold businesses on its value. But when you put WSS in the hands of users/decision makers who don't understand it, you'll often see a mess later on. But you can't deny that from a manager/business owner perspective, WSS is a very affordable and attractive option.
  2. mike h – Dec 11 05 @ 02:34AM
    Just curious - was this an actual quote you got from somewhere?

    "Need a live document, bug tracking system, or quick collaboration device... here’s SharePoint".

    Kind of scary...

    I think if you appended "quick" and/or "very lightweight" in front of "bug tracking system", then that statement might be more useful :)
  3. Jake Good – Dec 11 05 @ 02:34AM
    I actually made it up, somewhat twisted from comments/feelings I recieved while attempting to solve internal business problems focusing in those areas.

    Essentially the answer was... "Why can't we just use SharePoint?"
  4. blameMike – Dec 11 05 @ 02:34AM
    Dude it's 'Tussin. The generic form. LMFAO!!!

    I agree with everything you said about Sharepoint.
  5. Erik – Dec 11 05 @ 02:34AM
    Just wait until you see the next version!

    Be careful who you rip in your blog. Just who are the "Technology Consultants" you are talking about?
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