SharePoint: IT still doesn't get it!

Here is a shocking statement of the obvious. It's not the users' fault!

I was speaking with a client the other day and we talked about how deploying SharePoint in his small business ($5MM (US), 40 team members) would cost around $15-20K... but if he wanted to, he could spend 10 times that amount. It is the classic problem of the clean canvas. SharePoint can do so many things, in so many ways, that the simple task of just deciding where to start can be a truly intimidating effort.

Full disclosure ... I am a strong and long-time advocate of SharePoint. I believe that it be a transformational force in a company. But the trick is, and always has been, user adoption.

In a recent post on CIO.com, Shane O'Neill cites a September 2010 uSamp survey of 317 US business email users to claim that the biggest hurdle to SharePoint adoption is the familiarity of old work habits. Namely, they use email to enable document sharing and collaboration instead of SharePoint. Over 80% of the respondents say the prefer to email documents over uploading them to a shared workspace, shared drive or a public folder. If you peruse the comments posted in response to the survey, it is easy to detect a certain tone. It is slightly condescending towards users; wondering why they don't seem to understand and acknowledge that SharePoint is so clearly superior to email.

It seems to me that SharePoint evangelists are by and large missing the point. If SharePoint truly is superior to email for sharing and collaboration, users will adopt it. But it many ways, it isn't.

Consider the following. When a new person is added to the collaboration team, how many steps must a normal business user go through to send them the latest version of the document? Using SharePoint? Request that the site administrator grant their account permission to access the workspace. Wait for response. Check to make sure they have access. Send them an email with a link to the document and the accompanying note. And that assumes that the new person already has general access to the site (which can get tricky if that new person is a contractor or consultant without a network account). Now let's review the email process. Open a new email. Attach the document. Write your accompanying note. Click send. Which is easier? More intuitive? Faster?

If your firm is struggling with SharePoint adoption, then most likely it's because IT is asking users to replace their easy and intuitive process with a clunky and hard-to-learn process. If you want to spur adoption, then you have to do three things:

1. Focus on SharePoint's strengths, not its weaknesses. It's actually very good for dashboards and content that doesn't change frequently.
2. Focus on a specific problem rather than an all-encompassing solution. When users find that truly makes their work easier in one area, they will explore it on their own.
3. Focus on the users that are heavy users of MS Office products, like finance, administrative assistants and project managers. They will find more opportunities to take advantage of the tool's strengths than the more casual user.

SharePoint can be a great solution for the right problem set. But information technology professionals need to understand that users don't care about storage space, workflows, or document indexing. They just want to get their work done. Help them do that, and maybe SharePoint can find a role.

The survey was commissioned by Mainsoft (a company that claims to integrate SharePoint into Outlook and Lotus Notes). Respondents work in sales, marketing, human resources, and legal departments in companies with 100 or more employees.

ROI for Exchange 2010

On November 9, Microsoft will make Exchange 2010 available for general release. This, of course, creates on more decision that CIOs and CTOs will be considering in the upcoming year. Of course, there is rarely a tangible return on what is almost always a significant investment when it comes to in-place upgrades. The incremental benefits of the new system usually are not compelling enough, by themselves, to justify the disruption, risk and expense.

Exchange 2010 might be an exception, however. Microsoft claims that Exchange 2010 has 70% less disk I/O requirements than Exchange 2007. This makes viable the slower, cheaper disks of DAS (direct-attached storage), freeing up more expensive SAN storage for other, more I/O intensive systems. This is an area that has great potential for savings, as organizations are creating and keeping more and more content, and therefore increasing the need for storage.

My recommendation is to carefully consider setting aside budget to evaluate Exchange 2010 in the first quarter of next year, with an eye towards executing the upgrade during the second half. This will provide some time for Microsoft to fix the inevitable bugs and for the market to either prove or refute the I/O claim.

SharePoint is a survivor

I've long held that SharePoint, Microsoft's flagship content management software, is a great solution, provided it is deployed carefully. It seems that millions of experts agree! Even with all of the bad news that the software industry has endured over the past 12 months, Microsoft is claiming over 17,000 customers for SharePoint.

Why would this be happening?

In my view, SharePoint provides firms with a reasonably priced collaboration platform, thus fitting into a very specific purpose in the world. However, there are some critical success factors to every SharePoint deployment. The first and foremost is to use the platform to solve a targeted business requirement.

Examples might include ...

• Technology Project Team Sites
• Executive Management Team documentation
• Departmental Dashboards

You want to be focused and targeted because the tool is so comprehensive that it is tempting to try and create an all-emcompassing intranet right from the start. Trust me, that's a mistake. In one year, you'll be wondering where all the money went and why there's so little to show for it. And worse, only a few ultra-creative teams will have availed themselves to anything the tool has to offer.

If your firm is considering a SharePoint, please contact us. We'll help you stack the deck in favor of a successful implementation at an exceptionally reasonable cost.

Credit where credit is due ...
The article that got me thinking about this topic:
SharePoint thrives in the Recession from C-Net

Oracle raises prices again

Despite the unassailable growth of low-cost and open-source database solutions, Oracle (ORCL: NASDAQ) commands a huge share of the enterprise class database market. It's no surprise to me that they are looking for ways to capitalize on this by raising prices on ancillary products. The basic entry point for their database software hasn't changed much. But add-ons such as Tuning Pack and Diagnostic Pack have seen jumps by as much as 40%.

Will large businesses be willing to pay these prices? I think so. The improvements in performance gained by the effective use of these tools will more than justify the cost. And when making a purchasing decision, companies don't often look at what the price used to be -- that information isn't often available anyway. They look at the current need, the current solution, and the current expectations of benefit. So, Oracle has made a smart play here. By keeping the cost of entry competitive, they have placed a bet on getting more value out of the products that make their core product even better. This will make their core products even harder to displace, and help to fortify their position in the market.

Current Pricing from Oracle
Other insights from the blogosphere

Oracle expands SaaS offerings at a high price

Back in November, I posted a blog on Larry Ellison's down-beat assessment of Software-as-a-Service models. Just five short months later, Oracle is set to launch a subscription-based procurement program application called Oracle Sourcing On Demand. It has a fairly high price-tag -- $850 (US) per user per month (PUPM) -- especially compared to their SaaS CRM product which clocks in around $100(US) PUPM.

Oracle claims that Sourcing on Demand will integrate seamlessly with their on-premise ERP systems, as well as with others. Of course, they all say that. And of course, such a claim relies on a loose definition of "seamless." Nevertheless, it's an important concession by a company that, like SAP, has self-servingly downplayed the efficacy of SaaS solutions. They realize that their long-term survival will depend on making their products easy to buy. In today's market, the best way to do that is to reduce or eliminate the up-front capital outlays normally associated with such solutions.

Still, a single annual subscription for Oracle's new product tops $10K, and a firm with five users is looking at $50K before they even start to integrate the product into their business. It appears to me that Oracle is pricing themselves out of the market.

Oracle, Inc.: ORCL (NASDAQ)
Related newstory: Oracle Offers Procurement SaaS

SAP declares that SaaS will not work

The CEO of SAP, Bill McDermott, predicts that Software as a Service will never be a viable platform for large companies. He cites several common-sense reasons as the basis for this opinion, including the need for control of proprietary information, as well as the challenge of integrating data across multiple platforms.

Stripping away the dramatic use of the word "never", McDermott stakes out a fairly reasonable position on the future of SaaS. The largest global organizations already run their operations in a kind of SaaS environment.

How so?
Think about a centrally located enterprise SAP or Oracle implementation that serves users across multiple locations and P/L centers. The firm doesn't have an individual installation for each business unit; all the business units share a single, large instance of the software. Presumably the costs associated with the software are spread across the business units. Doesn't that sound a lot like a SaaS model? The only difference is that the centralized IT organization typically does not get actual money from the user community the way that Salesforce.com does.

So it stands to reason that a SaaS model does not currently make sense for large enterprises.

But, "never" is long, long time. And the economics that justify proprietary investments in enterprise software are certainly subject to change. The SaaS cost-structure does not necessarily work so well for the customers that expect to increase their number of users significantly. However, the in-house installation model does not work so well for firms that expect to decrease their user base in the coming years.

I believe that the Software as a Service is a viable path for small and mid-sized firms. If they grow into large firms, then the ongoing subscription expense will be the impetus for re-examining that strategy. Until then, however, the avoidance of the upfront investment -- in cash -- presents a compelling case for taking advantage of the SaaS offerings.

SAP AG: SAP (NYSE)
Oracle Corporate: ORCL (NASDAQ)
Salesforce.com: CRM (NYSE)
InformationWeek Article: SAP CEO: SaaS Won't Work As A Core Platform

Software Vulnerabilities Exposed

A recent study lists Firefox, EMC VMWare, Citrix, iTunes and 8 other popular software titles as the most vulnerable applications currently in use. In order to merit this dubious distinction, the softare must various criteria, including:

• Must run on Windows
• Well-known to the general computing public
• Generally regarded as non-malicious by most computer departments
• Had at least one reported security flaw during 2008
• Requires the end user to maintain the security - as opposed to central application administration.

This necessarily narrows the list -- somewhat unnaturally -- since most of the Microsoft products in popular use can be regulated via a centralized application management tool, such as SMS or WSUS. The study is focused on a corporate audience, as the publishing enterprise - Bit9 - sells a software management tool that addresses the problems that enabled these titles to make the list. So the results need to be taken with generous skepticism.

Nevertheless, the list makes for interesting reading, as it includes some of the recognizable names in consumer and corporate technology.

2008's Popular Applications with Critical Vulnerabilities

• Mozilla Firefox
• Adobe Flash & Acrobat
• EMC VMware Player,Workstation and other products
• Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
• Apple QuickTime, Safari & iTunes
• Symantec
• Trend Micro
• Citrix Products
• Aurigma, Lycos
• Skype
• Yahoo! Assistant
• Microsoft Windows Live (MSN) Messenger

From a corporate perspective, there are fairly easy ways to protect agains the reported vulnerabilities, even without a tool like Bit9 is peddling. A sensible corporate policy regarding these applications, coupled with a thoughtful desktop image will take of the bulk of the risk.

Download the study from Bit9: The Most Vulnerable Applications—2008 Report

Seeking SAP Skills??

As an interesting follow-on to one of my posts last week, it seems that people who have SAP expertise are in increasingly high demand. An article published at CIO.com notes that even non-certified talent is seeing big jumps in pay over the past six months.

Other technologies are in high demand as well, but Exchange skills are not as attractive as they once were. I attribute this to several factors. First, Exchange is now far easier to administer than it once was. Furthermore, it has become something of a commodity product. And finally, there are several competing email server applications in the open-source market that have rendered Exchange a bit irrelevant.

But on the SAP side, I believe that there a few primary factors at work. First and foremost, SAP has done an excellent job of expanding marketshare over the past 24-36 months... especially in to the mid-cap space. These companies have likely gotten all they can out of an out-of-the-box implementation, and are seeing the value of customizations. This will represent an increase in demand for people who can execute those customizations, and I believe that the change in demand will hold for at least the next 3 years. Second, the larger organizations - being affected by this increase in demand - are having to up their offers in order to entice the talent they need. This will continue as the business leadership continues to expect more and more adaptation of the systems to their changing requirements. Like the mid-sized players, this reflects an increasing sophistication on the part of business leaders, and can be expected to continue.

Link to the CIO.com article: Demand for SAP skills keeps rising

IT spending absorbs some blows

According to an article on C-NET, Goldman Sachs has released a study predicting that some aspects of IT spending will soften in the current period. The expected growth rate will not be quite as robust, coming in at 4% instead of 6%. Of course, like all economic news, not all sectors fare equally. Plus, the article does not address professional services, such as consulting or staff augmentation.

Nevertheless, there are definitely points of interest. For instance, Microsoft and Apple are neither losing nor gaining wallet share. Two vendors in the thin-computing space - VMWare and Citrix - are on the plus side, along with (shhhhh) Red Hat.

To me, this combination means that the desktop operating system is becoming less and less relevant to the corporate IT decision maker. Application availability, regardless of location or client platform, is gaining favor. And finally, it appears that Microsoft is starting to lose its stranglehold on the corporate computing environment.

Another point of interest is the presence of SAP on the upside. Those who predicted the demise of the proprietary ERP seem to have missed the target there.

I look forward to your comments.

Link to the article: Report: IT spending to drop, but Red Hat and Oracle to clean up

Project success measures

Gartner is starting to advise IT leaders that technology projects need to get smaller and faster. It seems to me to be an extension of the Agile software-development methodology.

According to an article on SearchCIO.com, a Gartner analyst proposed this line of thinking at a recent conference in Boston. Her analysis implies that PMO's get whacked because of the administrative burden that they put on to the organization. What would create this impression? Most likely, it's the notion that formal Project Management practices are often perceived as bureaucratic over-reaching. Whether they are or not is largely a function of implementation, because everyone agrees that good project management is critical to project success. But after reading the article, I'm not sure how scaling down or speeding up projects is going to change this perception.

But about halfway down the article, the author reveals some excellent insights from analyst. Here are some quotes:

The line people use, including Gartner, 'There are no IT projects, they're all business projects?' Well, forget it, they're all IT projects, because if they fail, you take the hit.
Another fact of project management that sometimes eludes IT is that project success correlates with user adoption

Certainly CRM success is almost entirely dependent upon user adoption. And if users don't adopt it, they will blame IT. And what the analyst seems to be saying is that this same factor applies to ERP systems, HR systems, and payroll systems. But do users have the option to not adopt these kinds of applications? If a payroll clerk doesn't like the new payroll system and decides not to use it, do they get paid?

I have tremendous respect for Gartner. At the same time, it seems that they are not really covering new ground.

The article on SearchCIO.com can be found here:
Project management needs to think smaller, faster .... By Linda Tucci

Is SAP going to make some noise?

A case can be made that SAP has made plenty of noise over the past 10 years or so. But for whatever reason, $16 Billion in annual revenue and 25%+ market share in the ERP space just doesn't seem to bring out the headline writers.

Of course, ERP software doesn't directly impact consumers, and their chiefs aren't clamoring for the spotlight (ahem, Mr. Ellison). But they've been pretty steady in terms of revenue and profit performance for a reasonably long period of time, now. Plus, their strategic direction appears to be quite sound. SAP has improved their release strategy (offering less disruptive, but more frequent updates), targeting small and midsized businesses, allowing developers to extend the application, and driving more integration with MS Office and Business Objects. Coupled with an aggressive sales force and smart brand-awareness decisions, it seems to me that SAP is on the right track. I haven't followed their acquisitions, so that's still an open question.

For more, read the CIO Magazine Article.