Product Abuse and SharePoint to the Rescue
This quarter's TS2 content is all about SharePoint and building revenue around the services that it can offer to your customers. If you have attended one of my events, you know that I draw a lot from my support experiences to tell stories that tie into SharePoint. I often make examples of people using Exchange Public Folders as a file store. The call would be "Exchange is slow...". Of course, we would then reply with any/all of the following: "Slow compared to what?" or "Has it ever performed fast?" or "What changed?". Is it a bad idea to use Exchange in this manner? Well, that depends... Were the various Exchange 2003 sizing tools used to get an idea about what type of hardware would be required for the specific Exchange deployment and typical user scenario? Typically the answer was "no".
SharePoint to the rescue!! Using the right technology for the right business need... The Microsoft Partner's key opportunity around SharePoint revolves around the Partner's understanding of their customer's business and business processes. Your holistic view of the business with your understanding of key technologies can empower you to "come to the rescue" of Exchange with a SharePoint proposal. Are your customers emailing huge files back and forth? Are all the critical files sitting on a share on a workstation on the network? How many of your customers are mobile? Would your customer benefit from a collaborative workspace where documents can be posted, ideas shared with a blog or wiki and security controlled so only key members have access?
Here are some customer scenarios around SharePoint deployments. Are these LARGE deployments around MOSS 2007? Yes they are however there are key takeaways from each that might be implemented independently with a WSS 3.0 solution.
Is SharePoint cool? YES! Can SharePoint benefit your customers? MOST LIKELY? How can SharePoint be used in your customer's environments? Insert your answer here:
btw, I am posting this from a middle school in Fort Worth on a Saturday afternoon as my 10 year-old daughter competes in a local UIL competition!
Petergal