Wow, Andrew Connell has just posted quite a comment on how CMS Watch has been reviewing SharePoint for the last couple of months. I've been following CMS Watch for a few months now and I have to agree with Andrew: there hasn't been a single positive word about SharePoint published by CMS Watch. For customers, who rely on their opinion and report, it might seem that SharePoint is nothing but an experimental CMS.
I have worked with SharePoint WCM for almost two years now and I have to admit: it's not perfect but I'm definitely charmed by its flexibility. It ships with rich set of functionality, but you can extend it even further by leveraging the application platform SharePoint 2007 is.
Just as Andrew mentioned: SharePoint is not a "one size fits all", butch which Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) is? Imtech ICT Velocity – the company I work for, delivers solutions based on another ECMS as well (I've worked half year with it), so I can do a comparison by simply talking to my colleagues. None of the both products is better: they are simply different and each of them is the best choice depending on the business case. Personally I think that SharePoint 2007 is a great and powerful CMS and there are a lot of sites on the Internet which can prove that.
July 11th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Hi there,
as one of the authors of the CMS Watch report on SharePoint (The SharePoint Report 2008) and a principal at CMS Watch I felt I had to answer this one
The fact is there is a lot of positive comment from us regarding MOSS, and any reader of our extensive research would know that – at every presentation I make on the topic I stress the fact that I think MOSS is an excellent product.
However, it is not perfect – and there are occasions when it is not a good fit for buyers, and buyers are who we write for not vendors. Vendors are criticized equally by CMS Watch – and we never ever work for vendors. This is a stark contrast to other analyst firms out there.
MOSS is a good product – but unfortunately too many people have bought it to use in unsuitable situations – it has been miss sold by the channel – sometimes accidentally sometimes deliberately. Microsoft's own definition of ECM differs from the rest of the industry causing more confusion. And frankly there are some major deployments out there in Fortune 500 firms that have gone terribly wrong.
So we see our job as dishing out the good and the bad – ensuring buyers are well informed and well armed. The cheerleading we will leave to the vendors – be that Microsoft, EMC, IBM or anyone else.
Hope this helps to clarify
Best
Alan