Considering the recent track record, it’s hard to imagine what could stand in the way of SharePoint gaining CMS market dominance over the next few years. Until you consider this announcement. One reason SharePoint is gaining acceptance is because of its close ties to the authoring tools. Everyone generally agrees it is less than it could be from an ECM feature perspective. Yet MicroSoft’s absolute dominance of the corporate desktop combined with the prevalence of MS Office applications fast tracks SharePoint to the head of the agenda in any CMS discussion.
But what if you weren’t running an MS environment. Then they have to compete on real cost of ownership and features. Is the MOSS story nearly as compelling if you have to go out of your way to make it work with something other than Office for document creation?
Corporations will be hesitant to drop huge amounts of money into desktop upgrades in the coming years and the prospect of dumping a CAL for a supported open source alternative backed by Big Blue is right in today’s cost conscious CIO’s wheelhouse. Without this key competitive advantage the battle for collaborative content mangement is a very different game.
Lee Dallas
Marko Sillanpää