We continue to discuss Microsoft’s SharePoint in this 4 part series, and whether SharePoint 2007 is a friend or foe of the independent dealer.

With the growing market for SharePoint, businesses will be forced to make a decision about whether to play with or against Microsoft SharePoint. Given over $1 Billion in licensing was sold within the last year, Microsoft has a potential slumbering giant quickly coming to its senses. What is perhaps most interesting to the independent dealer channel is the visibility SharePoint brings to the Document Management space.

Wait, just what is SharePoint?

If you haven’t been exposed to it, it’s a little tough to wrap your mind around. One of my friends described it as “network Play-Doh“. That’s interesting, but what does it do for me?

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 comes in 2 flavors: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). SMB’s will traditionally be able to rapidly deploy WSS, and not hassle with expensive licensing in MOSS. However, at certain levels, MOSS offers some higher level functionality that you just can’t beat.

SharePoint Technology is presented as a website. What is unique about SharePoint is that it allows for customization of the content on that web page by enabling drag-and-drop and point-and-click editing of the content.

The way this is accomplished is by use webparts. Think of webparts like bricks used in building a wall. Each brick has its purpose in the scheme, but imagine, if you will, you decide you would like some of your bricks to be purple, or green, or yellow. With modular webparts, you can define various content types within the SharePoint site.

Let’s say you want a picture gallery, or a small document library, or even a sales forecast tool. All of these are either built-in options, or quickly available through point-and-click interfaces. You don’t have to be a web programmer to manage your SharePoint site.

The real power of SharePoint comes with its tight integration with the Microsoft Office Suite and Microsoft Exchange Server (Microsoft’s own e-mail platform). Rather than e-mailing a copy of an Excel file around and getting lost in which version you are looking at, you can simply use a web browser, navigate to the document, and check it out - much like a library book. Now you know who has the document and can even view the document while it is in its “checked-out” state without deleting the other person’s changes.

With all of that power and flexibility under the hood, it sounds very complex to implement. Is it?

There is some truth in this statement, because it’s not yet just a point-and-click install. There are, indeed, several other components that will need to be operational first. However, most companies already have these things in place, and to get started there is no charge for the software. Compared to most software suites, WSS can be installed and lightly configured in hours and not days.

Microsoft SharePoint is truly network Play-Doh. It is a web-based platform that I can shape and mold into just about anything I want. For instance, here are a few things I’m using it for:

1. Corporate Intranet
2. Sales Forecast Dashboard
3. Document Library (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)
4. Company News
5. Company Associate Forms
6. Customer Project Management
7. Document Collaboration
8. Departmental Workflow

SharePoint Technology can be bent to many different uses, and it is generally very easy for people to adopt basic use because they are already navigating the web.

less training needed = higher adoption curve

Now that you see how beneficial SharePoint Technology can be, the real question is, “where to start?”

Make no mistake, While SharePoint is fairly easy to install, it is like any other solution you propose. You, as your clients’ consultant, must draw upon the appropriate resources to determine if this solution is a good fit for your clients’ needs.

Does that sound hard? Doesn’t asking the correct questions equal uncovering the real problem to solve?

The point here is that SharePoint is flexible enough that it can solve many business problems and help you seed in growth opportunities within the account and secure your position as your clients’ valued partner.

Coming Up: In our next article we will look at how Microsoft SharePoint interacts with your Document Management strategies and offerings, as well as some thoughts on potential business plans.

Read this series here.

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.

Tonight we discuss “the renaissance of capture.” In a recent article in ImageSource titled Top 10 Industry Trends, authored by John Mancini, the President of AIIM, outlines what he believes to be the top 10 drivers within the DMS space… Let’s continue our discussion with the number 5 influencer in the DMS space this year:

5. The renaissance of capture.  As the market expands into mid-sized organizations, there is untold untapped opportunity in organizations still reliant on paper processes. The expanding use of multi-function devices as access points to document systems creates all sorts of opportunities for solution providers.  But solution providers need to get out of the mindset that this is still a hardware business or a hardware sale.  It ain’t.

Indeed their is a renaissance afoot. However, it is not just within the small realm of capturing documents. Paper-based documents are still a very cost-effective way to transport information from one place to another. The printed page is increasing at an estimated 11% per year with 2006 volumes at somewhere close to 3500 billion pages (courtesy of Gartner via Jim Salzer over at DocuAudit International). However, I have seen no supporting data to further determine if these are simply reproductions of documents already available online or original documents to process and capture (although I have my suspicions).

DMS was originally intended to help structure the mess of file rooms, desktop clutter, and bloated file servers where otherwise structured data might be used (e.g. databases). A logical person might think DMS would be a strong contender to help structure the data with the rampant production of documents abound in today’s business. However, with increased potency of line of business (LOB) systems and the ever rising availability of digital originals, one can’t help wonder if the need for paper-based capture may be waning. On the flip side of the coin, dealers selling DMS are wondering whether providing a repository for the documents will allow people to let loose the purse strings and encourage generous volumes of reprints.

No doubt there are companies with rampant paper processes, and every dealer is anxious to know whether the pain is enough for them to buy one of their solutions, whereas business owners who have not adopted a DMS are asking why they would buy something when they don’t see a problem…

If the dealer is attempting to position a piece of hardware as the solution rather than taking into account a customer’s need for an over-arching strategy, I disagree with the opinion that the expanding use of multi-function devices as access points provides an opportunity to the dealer. However, I do see that DMS will provide an opportunity for dealers to reap the rewards of tying their hardware to a compay’s DMS or LOB system using middleware packages.

My only caution would be that dealers don’t become tunnel visioned in the process. John is clear to state “it ain’t” a typical hardware sale. True enough… so why even go in talking about the hardware at all?

For those of you in the “copier dealer” channel (although I’m loath to use this term) you are probably wrestling with the realities of Document Management Systems (DMS). In a recent article in ImageSource titled Top 10 Industry Trends, authored by John Mancini, the President of AIIM.

In this article John outlines what he believes to be the top 10 drivers within the DMS space… Being in the business of documents, I found the article compelling.  Not surprisingly, taking the number 1 spot was the momentum SharePoint is garnering. John goes on to say:

1. The entry of Microsoft SharePoint as a serious player in the document and records infrastructure marketplace.  This is one of the most important developments in evangelizing these technologies that we have ever seen. Suppliers and consultants will debate what MOSS can do and what it can’t.  But it won’t matter; it will spread like kudzu through the end user community.

John could not be more dead on with this. With the advent of SharePoint 3.0, whether it be the enterprise or SMB offering, Microsoft has taken root in the document space. We use it daily for both an Intranet solution as well as for dashboarding and workflow. Microsoft has once again bundled a core offering into the OS; since it is free to get started, meets some entry needs for the SMB, and is extremely compatible with the predominant desktop OS and Office suites it is indeed “spread[ing] like kudzu” (John must’ve been to South Carolina recently)!

While this solution is great for “evangelizing” the DMS/CMS market, I have quickly discovered it is not a very good DMS solution. Don’t mistake the fact that it has some wonderful collaborative tools and is extremely solid in ad hoc workflow solutions. However, SharePoint offerings are not true DMS’s in and of themselves.

Education is a tough thing here because many people don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to store a document within a database, as part of the SQL table record. It took me seeing what happens when you hit your first 20,000 documents stored - or worse have a client hit 3,000,000 pages 3 years early!

The performance takes a huge hit, and backups are a nightmare simply because you are handling 1 huge file instead of incrementally dealing with each file as needed. Think about your entire customer base calling you on Monday morning demanding a service call! You’re service team would crumble.

In closing, SharePoint will give your dealership the opportunity to talk to more customers about DMS, but if you don’t get there first and have an education strategy for them - you are the one that will get schooled.

My suggestion is to partner or acquire talent that can bring SharePoint knowledge into your company. It’s a technology that has its place - so you can either learn to use it to your advantage or see how much longer selling copiers with Paperport will last…

Tomorrow we discuss the entry of “alternative” delivery systems… what does that even mean?