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In recent times, a lot of debate has been going around about the suitability of Sharepoint as an Enterprise 2.0 tool. The initial hype and MS marketing efforts around SharePoint caused massive adoption (they sold a 100 million licences as far back as in March 2008 - staggering!!). But now that the hype has somewhat settled down, and enterprises have had real experience with using the product for business realities, the true strengths and weaknesses of Sharepoint have started to emerge. First it would make sense to define what "enterprise 2.0" means. According to wikipedia Enterprise 2.0 is "a term describing social software used in "enterprise" (business) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software, which imposes structure prior to use, enterprise social software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure." From the above, it is obvious that Enterprise 2.0 emphasizes a bottom up approach, lesser structure, and greater communication and interaction across organizational boundaries. Practical experience, however, has taught that in spite of its initial promise, SharePoint is not proving to be a tool which encourages the above cornerstones of enterprise 2.0. The main problems are its complexity, which discourages end user participation and use. On the other hand, some SaaS collaboration companies traditionally targeting small to mid sized companies are witnessing enterprises gravitating towards their products. This is likely because of the end user orientation of these solutions, as they have been developed for non expert small business users. Dion Heathcliff from ZNet has very insightfully listed out the shortcomings of SharePoint as an enterprise tool. 1) SharePoint is not a Web 2.0 native. 2) The technology landscape of the enterprise environment fits SharePoint well; the business requirements to a lesser extent. 3) The wilds of the open network can be a challenge for Sharepoint. 4) Self-service capabilities are lacking or not emphasized. 5) Cost and complexity. The verdict is summed up by Thomas Vander Wal's emphatic conclusion - Sharepoint is NOT Enterprise 2.0!
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