🔎 Overview

• Many mid-to-large organizations report frustration with Microsoft SharePoint 2007.

• Most have used it between 1 month to 1 year.

• Common conclusion:

  • SharePoint works for structured, hierarchical processes.

  • It does not work well for Enterprise 2.0 social collaboration.

✅ What SharePoint Does Well

• File sharing

• Document management

• Workflow and formal approvals

• Structured, prescribed team environments

Survey insight:

• ~47% use it mainly for file sharing or as a portal.

• ~83% use or plan to use SharePoint.

❌ Where It Falls Short (Enterprise 2.0 Goals)

Organizations expected:

• Open sharing

• Cross-silo collaboration

• Self-organizing groups

• Easy discovery of knowledge

Instead they experienced:

• Explosion of micro-silos

• Information difficult to find

• Poor cross-group visibility

• Difficult ad-hoc collaboration

• Heavy permissions and hierarchy

Common sentiment:

“We went from 5 silos to hundreds.”

🎯 The Marketing vs. Reality Gap

Microsoft marketing promoted:

• Collaboration

• Social computing

• Enterprise 2.0 enablement

Reality:

• Primarily document management with social “labels”

• Limited flexibility

• Expensive customization

• Long development cycles

• High resource requirements

Example:

• Lockheed Martin customization reportedly required:

  • ~1 year

  • 40 FTEs

  • $1–5M investment

🔒 Core Complaint: Information Locked Down

• SharePoint starts locked by default.

• Unlocking content for broader sharing is difficult.

• Search does not easily surface cross-group knowledge.

• Reuse of information is limited.

🛠 What Organizations Do Next

After realizing limitations, companies typically:

1️⃣ Add Plug-ins

• Wiki tools

• Social tagging tools

• Bookmarking tools

• Search enhancements

Result:

• More capable system

• But higher overall cost

• Often plug-ins work fine without SharePoint

2️⃣ Add Full Social Suites on Top

• Implement full social platforms layered over SharePoint

• Easier than heavy customization

• Still costly

• Avoids stitching many tools together

3️⃣ Remove SharePoint Entirely

Some organizations:

• Fully replace SharePoint

• Choose best-of-breed tools or full social platforms

• Report:

  • Lower cost per user

  • Faster deployment

  • Lower maintenance staffing

💰 Cost & Customization Issues

• 50% report customization required more effort than expected.

• Integration with non-Microsoft tools is challenging.

• Developers are expensive.

• Development cycles are longer than alternatives.

🧠 Final Conclusion

• SharePoint has value.

• It works well for structured document workflows.

• It is not a true Enterprise 2.0 platform on its own.

• To function socially, it requires:

  • Significant add-ons

  • High customization

  • Higher costs

Irony:

• Microsoft marketing successfully promoted enterprise social software.

• But many other platforms delivered the social value more effectively.

• Originally published at Pesonal InfoCloud