Fighting the past…

As a hardened web veteran I tend to take the view that nothing is new. For example, all the core elements of today’s massively popular social networks were seen in the first generations of business collaboration solutions back in the mid to late 90s.

Having struggled at that time to get people actively interested and empowered to create and manage web content with early content management systems, I was impressed with the speed with which collaborative solutions such as eRoom (acquired by Documentum – now owned by EMC) and IBM Quickplace (now IBM Lotus Quickr) gained user adoption.

It was all about making online communication easy, productive and useful for non-technical people.

Solutions like eRoom found their way into organisations during the 90s dotcom boom as point solutions for helping to manage communication around projects. Because users had positive experiences with these solutions their usage spread quite rapidly from the ground up and by the time the IT managers got wind of them they were too established to stop or ignore.

This was a great business model that Microsoft latched onto subsequently with SharePoint and although its first offering in 2001 was criticised for poor usability, the 2003 release of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 2.0 and Portal Server, where WSS was bundled in free with Windows Server, created just the effect Microsoft was looking for and SharePoint adoption spread rapidly within many organisations.

I liked the 2003 version of SharePoint for all the reasons I liked the products that were its inspiration. As a non-technical ‘power user’ it empowered me to capture information concerning projects, put some context around it and communicate that around the business in a way that encouraged and enabled feedback and engagement.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) and WSS 3.0 improved on the usability issues of the second version, added in wiki and blog capabilities and, in essence provided the toolkit to create business orientated ‘social networks’ within organisations.

So, why then, having been a long term advocate of business collaboration and also the SharePoint offering in recent years did I find myself underwhelmed and quite disappointed with SharePoint when I revisted it again recently?

A couple of days ago I signed up for the new Microsoft BPOS European trial and set about creating a sample intranet site that showcased the key capabilities available in the SharePoint solution, from document management, image libraries and team workspaces to more complex functionality using the core ‘list/form building’ capabilities. (There is a great summary of BPOS pros and cons by a former colleague of mine here)

It was during this experience that the reason Microsoft invested in Facebook became all too apparent – besides any potential for being the next big online advertising platform, Facebook  is just so much easier and pleasurable to use for doing what are essentially the same processes of building a collaborative environment as SharePoint. Added to this is morphing of social network environments into what some commentators are describing as 'the new e-mail'.

Once again I think this illustrates the continuing challenge Microsoft has in moving on from its heritage as primarily a desktop pc software provider.

The iPhone demonstrates quite starkly how wrong Windows Mobile is and likewise, the myriad of web native solutions spawned under the moniker of ‘web 2.0’ show just how awkward and cumbersome some of the most established software solutions are when the playing field is levelled to what can be done in a web browser alone.

Having spent some time in a software development role I have some insight into the challenges presented by trying to evolve a solution into something more current and relevant. For example, changing a product that was designed primarily for managing one website in one language or allowing content to be published without workflow or a deployment process are not straightforward or quick to do if those requirements were never conceived when the product was first designed.

Multiply that by the size and complexity of the Microsoft organisation and it is no surprise that its solutions sometimes feel restrained, tired and dated compared to those not weighed down by such baggage and designed with the current platform in mind as opposed to older device and network access.