Rarely has a new set of technologies received as much hype as SharePoint has. Yet for users of ECM solutions, some fundamental issues
remain.
- What does SharePoint really do?
- How do its capabilities compare with traditional ECM solutions?
- What are its out of the box capabilities?
- Do I have to write code to extend SharePoint functionality?
With the pending release of SharePoint 2010, a lot of the mystery about what SharePoint really is has dissipated. According to Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer, SharePoint is "..a general purpose platform for connecting people with information." Since the generic definition of ECM is "...the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, store, manage, preserve and deliver information in support of business processes", the overlap between ECM and SharePoint is unmistakable. Everything about SharePoint is ECM in nature, but not entirely so in terms of ECM applications. SharePoint 2010 provides the technology infrastructure to do ECM (because it is an ECM platform), but not necessarily all of the required features. It provides the underlying framework for "..delivering information in support of business processes", which is why we here at Kollabria refer to SharePoint as a Business Operating System. It does not natively provide all of the features and capabilities required by many ECM applications. Instead it is an operating system that functionally connects people and information, and technically extends the Microsoft "stack" well into the realm of functionality supplied by standard ECM platforms. For the Microsoft centric organization this is an irresistible and essential set of core capabilities causing many with ECM solutions to actively strategize, plan and in some cases already begin to replicate the features and functionality of their standalone ECM applications on SharePoint.
There is no question that SharePoint is an ECM infrastructure, but contrary to popular belief it is not an out of the box ECM solution. Much like your operating system comes with core applications like, calculator, movie player, music player etc., it does not come with a spreadsheet, a movie editor and music recording studio. If you need that kind of functionality, you will need to purchase those applications. The applications you purchase run within the context of your operating system, and take advantage of its infrastructure capability, but you have to buy them in addition to the OS. So it is with SharePoint. It comes with a technical infrastructure that allows you to accomplish the same goal as an ECM platform, that is to "..deliver information in support of business processes", but it does not come with the full set of features required to "capture, store, manage and preserve" that content in the same sense that a traditional ECM solution does. Of course your needs may vary, batteries not included. The products highlighted on this page, all provide some, if not all of that additional functionality. They are, for lack of a better word, applications that run on SharePoint. So you can use SharePoint to "connect people with information", and you can use the 3rd party products highlighted in the right hand column to extend "capture, store, manage and preserve" to match the requirements of your ECM application on SharePoint.
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