Comments on: Microsoft's response to Google Chrome? SharePoint

Company is actually way ahead of Google when it comes to shifting the battle from the desktop to the cloud. Microsoft's ace is called SharePoint.

[jackdaniels08]

Google was born on the internet and the web. It is its DNA. Microsoft was born on the desktop. That's its DNA. We are all born with a certain DNA we cannot change. It is the blueprint from where all our cells are coded. If its web based. It's Google.

[rurik_bradbury]

@jackdaniels08: but enterprise IT is not Web based, it's private network-based. Enterprises do not want their proprietary content floating around the cloud, outside of IT department control. They are just not comfortable with that yet. And that's why SharePoint is already huge: it is like a private, on-premise 'cloud' to manage content and save files for one company.

@Matt -- what you're saying is very true but, thankfully, there is a bright side. The part of SharePoint that is so popular -- the file server element -- can be replicated. The aspect that would mean game-set-match for Microsoft -- SP as an apps platform -- is not so popular yet. SP as an apps platform is clunky and unresponsive, platform-biased (because it favors IE as you say) and an obvious stalking horse for MS throughout the enterprise.

Rurik Bradbury
www.unison.com

[FrankSz]

Google is an advertising company. It generates a lot of revenue, and dumps this cash into R&D. Some of that R&D yields releasable products, which Google makes public usually with a Beta label to mask the semi-professional way in which things are done. Google is not a software company and doesn't have the culture to be one. Enterprises will never adopt Google Chrome based apps, if not least because of privacy, security and stability concerns.

[bugm3n0t]

That makes a lot of sense.

[The_Decider]

Sharepoint is going to peak within the next two years or so and then go into a slow, irreversible decline.

Why?

Because OSS is growing at a good rate right now in the enterprise and is looking to increase its growth rate. MS doesn't play nice with others.

If it wants to be relevant in the enterprise in the next 5-10 years, it will have to work well in mixed environments seamlessly.MS talks interoperability but rarely delivers.

[Matt Asay]

@jacksaniels08: I tend to agree with this view but can't get past SharePoint's incredible momentum. A huge array of enterprises are building simple apps on SharePoint (holiday request forms, expense approval, etc.), similar to the app development aspirations Google has for Chrome. The difference is that Microsoft is already in the enterprise, and these applications are easy to create simply by assembling webparts. If you want to color outside the lines with Sharepoint, you're out of luck. But a wide range of applications will not need to do so. It's a formidable competitor.

[jandler]

"Sharepoint is going to peak within the next two years or so and then go into a slow, irreversible decline."

Stop watch started

"Because OSS is growing at a good rate right now in the enterprise and is looking to increase its growth rate. MS doesn't play nice with others."

I don't deny that OSS is growing at a good rate but Microsoft is still, despite its current dominance in enterprise, also growing at a good rate. Microsoft got enteprise in their blood. They understand enterprise. The same way as Apple got consumer in their blood. Does this means that OSS will not be successful in enterprise? Of course not. We simply need to look @ Red Hat. However, does that means that Microsoft will simply drop dead? Don't count on it. Countless of companies had made significant investments in Microsoft and they will simply not flip flop. They would have done it already if they wanted. Even now, countless of companies continue to invest in Microsoft as demonstrated by the article above.

"If it wants to be relevant in the enterprise in the next 5-10 years, it will have to work well in mixed environments seamlessly.MS talks interoperability but rarely delivers."

Again, stop watch started. Where do you get this information? Microsoft is involved in many interop project with partners and competitors. SAP, Oracle, Sun to name a few. All big players in the enterprise. I can easily write code within a Microsoft framework to access an oracle db, sap netweaver, etc etc to name a few as well.

Chrome faces an uphill battle. While they and their partner needs to build things to not only compete with what Microsoft and other major players already have, they will need to make something better and more significant to entice them to change.

If we look at the enterprise landscape in the past say 5 years. There is no doubt that more and more enteprise move towards the web. It is particularly true for small and medium enterprise who don't have the power to build and maintain their own software or hardware to run the company. But large enterprise wants to maintain control of their own data.

But remember even if it is on the cloud, it still needs to run on a physical machine somewhere. And that thing could easily be running windows server, sql server, iis, etc etc. Or Linux with Apache etc etc. What does this mean? It means that even if you don't have it locally, you will have it remotely.

[sean_001]

People need to wake up about the google talks. somebody write a browser, why do you think it is going to work before it even start to run. there are some a dozen web browsers since the beginning of the web. the only one that succeeded and lasted is Internet Explorer. google wrote a lot of craps, which one do you think worked? the only thing google did that was considered new is AJAX, to remind you, everybody, it is just a programming trick, if you know it, you know it. 100 lines of an article tells you all. And remind you, AJAX's grandfather is MSFT.

it is stupid to say software will be running on the web. IT IS NOT, no matter who told you that. aside of other reasons, one thing: will ever companies want to put their data on somebody else's server? how is it going to work otherwise? it doesn't matter it is from Wall Street Journal or NASA engineers, if it is wrong, it is wrong.

[johnwest72]

Wow. Just when I thought you couldn't be less relevant to your "Open Road", you manage to do it.

* This article doesn't have one single discussion point about anything open source! *

This article exists solely to get a brief one-line sentence in at the bottom mentioning Alfresco. Disclosure? Instead of "Disclosure:", you should have said "Free Advertising:". Come on, News.com. When are you going wise up like MSNBC did with their biased anchors and uninvite Matt from writing for you? It makes you look bad to have someone with such self-interests at heart to be writing this column.

John

[Matt Asay]

Are you serious? I wrote that line because I have to, not because it's even mildly relevant to the article. As for the topicality, you must live on a separate planet: SharePoint is HUGE, and it's just getting bigger. I can't find a single negative thing in the post about SharePoint - quite the contrary. So, if I'm biased...for whom? You need to be careful about projecting your own bias onto mine.

[Matt Asay]

Wow, John. Your're in the SharePoint consulting group, and you don't even like it when I write a post hugely complementary of SharePoint? You don't like it when I criticize SharePoint. YOu don't like it when I compliment it. What, exactly, do you like?

[realneil]

I think that the real reason for Chrome is not to gun for Microsoft at all.
They have, at considerable expense, build a new browser that is said to be secure. The browser is effectively isolated from the system it's installed on, protecting it from harm they tell us,..... but the reason for doing so is not about Microsoft,.....I think that so many of us are using browser add-ons and protections to filter out advertisements that they needed a way to get the advertisements back in front of our eyes. Chrome displays everything and there is no way to filter adds out and probably never will be. Google makes it's money on advertisements and protecting them makes sense from their point of view I would think. It's all about revenue, and maybe the more efficiant collection of data.

[RMarch]

The "DNA" comment is very simplistic. As another reader stated, Microsoft knows the enterprise. The enterprise is Microsoft's "DNA". They have the installed base, the connections, support, contracts, etc. in place. This takes decades to establish.

To some extent Microsoft's issue is it's own success, Apple is consumer. Oracle is Enterprise. Microsoft is both. This has inherant conflicts. Take IE for example. Consumers want new browsers every year / month / week! The enterprise was very happy with the 5 year IE 6 cycle and balked at moving to IE 7. Take a look around a business connection flight and tell me how many computers are running IE 6 - the majority.

I think this article is spot on, but actually needs to be much broader than just SharePoint.

[gary.edwards]

Unfortunately, i think Matt has this exactly right. The Microsoft WebStack (Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server) has become an enterprise - smb juggernaut, with SharePoint in a near unassailable position.

IMHO, it's not the features of SharePoint that make for this momentum. If that were the case, OSS alternatives like Alfresco would rule. The advantage SharePoint has is integration into existing MSOffice business documents and processes. No connectivity or interop barriers to reverse engineer or otherwise work around. For SharePoint, it's clear sailing to connect and transition the legacy monopoly base of business desktops to the enormously productive advantages of Web collaboration, connectivity and information meshing.

Somehow Microsoft was able to protect the MSOffice-Outlook-Access desktop business systems monopoly while they put the other pieces in place. Sure, putting together the .NET-WPF framework was difficult. Then there's the challenge of running the framework out across developers tools, services and applications that make up the MS WebStack, Cloud and RiA initiatives. If it were anyone other than Microsoft, we would be amazed that they are now in position to move from the desktop monopoly to a business Web monopoly.

No doubt the Web changes everything. Legacy "client/server" systems are being re-written to a new model we might best describe as "client/ WebStack-Cloud-RiA /server" systems. In many ways though, the MSOffice desktop has become so enmeshed with these workgroup business process and workflows that it not only is the anchor of "client/server" systems, but in many instances the "client" itself.

While it's universally accepted that Microsoft would have to figure out and perfect what would have to be a financially painful and monopolist ending transition to the Web, no one would have guessed we would be looking at a transition that could possibly break the Web; with Microsoft controlling and dominating an emerging "business" Web, and, Google-Apple-Adobe scrambling for dominance of the "consumer" Web. Such is the power of barriers into an MSOffice monopoly that anchors 95% of business "client/server" systems.

The thing that amazes me most though is that Microsoft has figured out how to move to the Web, while controlling the key formats, protocols and interfaces that connect the MSOffice monopoly to emerging WebStack, Cloud and RiA systems. The great transition is not going to be based on W3C, Ecma, OASIS or ISO standards.

What i see happening is that Microsoft applications increasingly offer "dual" formats, protocols and interfaces. Kind of a "let the user decide" approach. For instance, IE8 supports a limited but W3C approved HTML and CSS. No support for XHTML, SVG or XForms, but enough to put off anit-trust concerns for the moment. Another example is MSOffice support for ISO 26300 (ODF 1.1) and webDAV. Microsoft has joined the relevant W3C, EcmaScript and OASIS standards groups where concerns over backwards compatibility and interop routinely trump or stall much needed innovative advances.

So what's wrong with this picture? Simple. Microsoft has proprietary alternatives for the limited but open standard formats, protocols and interfaces their applications support. IE8 supports the XAML-Silverlight plugin. No HTML, CSS, SVG or JavaScript there. XAML-Silverlight is a portable subset of the proprietary .NET-WPF framework.

MSOffice supports both ISO 26300 and ISO 29600. But we're talking transition to the Web. A great transition if ever there was one. So what do we find in the MSOffice SDK? A very easy to implement OOXML XAML "fixed/flow" conversion component. Need to transition some 4 billion business process rich, complex and compound documents to the Web without disrupting existing business systems? Here you go. Just keep in mind that this transition to the Web is a MS WebStack-Cloud-RiA specific Web.

Another duality in MSOffice is that of webDAV support and support for the proprietary SharePoint collaboration protocol. Guess which one provides a richer "in-process" collaborative service?

The number one problem for Microsoft is that of dealing with anti-trust concerns. How far they get with this application level "duality" remains to be seen. The open standards activities however would seem to work very well. Standards groups work on interop, not innovation.

Like many, i believe that the OSS Community model is by far and away the best model for cooperatively advancing innovation and interop as if they were one. This is especially true wherever the GPL is used as the community licensing model. So, like many others involved in the emerging Web Applications (RiA) sector, i find myself looking towards OSS efforts like WebKit, where pushing innovation-interop beyond the stalled and lagging standards groups is baked into the development model. It may be the only way to challenge this new "duality" and run with proprietary Microsoft RiA.

~ge~

[Greg_Clark]

So you've changed your mind? You seemed to be all gung-ho for Google in December: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9835259-16.html

That said, I do agree with your perspective on SharePoint and the announcement of the CMIS standard today just cements their position. Here's my take on my blog: http://www.c3associates.com/2008/09/10/interoperability-sharepoint-and-the-future-of-ecm/

[cmfnyc]

As a user, I've found Sharepoint incredibly cumbersome and difficult to use. Granted I have not seen fully customized implementation, but it seems built for large IT departments that have ample time and financial backing to figure out what the heck it does and how to skin it for users. It promises to be the end all be all from wikis to blogs to file sharing, etc. But doesn't deliver on that promise. One IT person summed it up, it does a little bit of everything OK, though not very well. Businesses have shifted to it, I believe, because its free. But eventually even free must stand on merits. Maybe I'm completely naive and miss the point, but Sharepoint seems built for an older model of tech implementation--from the enterprise down. But it seems like Web 2.0 is moving from consumer up. So I tend to agree with the earlier comment that Sharepoint development will likely hit a sandbar in a few years, unless Microsoft can update the software more often than once every 3.5 years.

[crb0r]

You'd get more hits for Filenet if you didn't spell it "Fiilenet" :-)

[AppleSuxLeo]

Chrome wasn`t any faster than IE8 for me , and IE8 has many more useful features baked-in.I`m not the only one that noticed Chrome and FF hammer your CPU even AFTER the page loads. Patrick Norton mentioned it on TWIT`S latest podcast. It actually makes my TV app stutter and get choppy and IE causes NO SUCH PROBLEM. IE8 is obviously getting much more done...with many fewer CPU cycles. I have already 86`d FF3 AND Chrome.