Abel Solutions / Axceler Webinar

Bird’s-Eye View of the SharePoint Conference 2011

October 2011

Although Georgia is on my mind, SharePoint is on the mind of all attendees here in Anaheim, CA, at the SharePoint Conference 2011. It is amazing to see the incredible turnout from not only the United States, but from representatives from all around the world; a true testament to the success and continually accelerating popularity of SharePoint.

All the usual suspects are here. The Product Team members from Microsoft, as well as large hardware and software vendors and even services providers have booths set up in the enormous exhibitor hall. It appears the architects, developers and administrators are having a great time. Of course, end users of all kinds are here to learn new things about how to use SharePoint in more relevant ways in their day-to-day business activities.

Interesting Facts about SharePoint:

  • 125+ million licenses of SharePoint have been sold
  • 20,000 new users are added every day
  • 94, 000 Partners have been trained to use SharePoint
  • 65,000 customers and counting

While the numbers are staggering, it is no surprise, particularly in light of the new advancements that have emerged with the release of SharePoint 2010 and the exciting new integrated add-ons introduced by great ISV Partners, many who are here showing off for the masses.

I have spoken to people from varied business sizes and sectors and many feel they are still just scratching the surface of what this powerful platform can do for their organizations. While there are several different informational tracks here to choose from, it is clear to me that most users are looking for that “next thing” to continue to draw real business value out of their SharePoint investment.

One of the hottest topics is social computing and integrating a social strategy into your SharePoint environment. I personally attended several sessions that focused on this rapidly growing area and it is clear, Microsoft recognizes the power of the SharePoint social advancement and it is adding to their toolset almost weekly to accommodate the needs and wants of end users. In fact, Microsoft released new social-related capabilities to their internal MySites environment just two days before the conference opened and they are indicating more features are rolling out in the weeks to come. Learn more about Microsoft’s use of MySites and new social functionality here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262706.aspx

SharePoint, Office, Exchange and now Lync were everywhere.

Besides Microsoft’s efforts in the rapidly advancing area of social, there are great Partners that are adding big value to the equation, too. NewsGator, Microsoft’s 2011 Partner of the Year, continues to impress with its social offering that fully integrates with SharePoint 2010. In addition to activity streaming (including a mobile capability), a deft colleague finder and many other useful features like tagging and badging, they just announced a new connector to Lync, which really rounds out an integrated Microsoft-based social collaboration experience. Read more about NewsGator and the connector here: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-collaboration/newsgator-social-sites-microsoft-lync-integration-glassboard-spheres-for-groups-012912.php

Another hot topic in the SharePoint business value discussion is workflow as part of an overall collaboration and document management strategy. Continuing to be noteworthy in this area has to be Nintex and its announcement of Nintex Forms 2010. Check out the information here: http://www.nintex.com/en-US/News/Pages/default.aspx

This announcement, on the heels of Nintex’s other recent release (Nintex Analytics 2010) combined with the strong success of their workflow engine is giving Nintex an even bigger lift. No wonder their booth is packed with visitors and sales of their products are through the roof again this year. I spoke with Mark McDermott, Sales Director from Nintex for The Americas, and he echoed the growth of Nintex as a real business solution platform when he told me, “Our success comes from the fact that our workflow, analytics and forms tools use SharePoint assets. If you know SharePoint, building forms and workflow is easy, benefitting you and your organization quickly and effectively.”

Finally, Business Intelligence (BI) is always a front and center topic and at this conference. Using SharePoint as part of an integrated platform strategy for data visualization and reporting is well documented, but with the increased emphasis on Crescent, Microsoft’s latest vision for advancing self-service BI, there will be even more punch coming from the SharePoint BI stack. You can read more about Crescent here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlrsteamblog/archive/2010/11/09/a-glimpse-at-project-crescent.aspx.

In closing, it has been a great week here in California. SharePoint continues to dazzle as a true enterprise-ready platform for social, collaboration, document management, business intelligence and so much more. More importantly, by evidence of the many service providers and product developers attending, SharePoint is truly a business value tool that provides great flexibility and capability in one, integrated platform. Abel Solutions made the correct strategic decision to focus on SharePoint more than 10 years ago. With so many SharePoint customers benefitting from the real business solutions Abel Solutions provides, it was a wise decision indeed.

The view of the keynote from my seat wasn’t quite “bird’s eye” but the message was still loud and clear.

This month’s tip contributed by J.C. Layton