Cracking Open the SharePoint Fortress

[ Thanks to DMandPenfold for this link. ]

"Despite – or maybe even because of – that nebulousness, SharePoint is a brilliant success, for a couple of reasons. In a way, it's Microsoft's answer to GNU/Linux: cheap and simple enough for departments to install without needing to ask permission, it has proliferated almost unnoticed through enterprises to such an extent that last year SharePoint Sales were $1.3 billion.

"But as well as being one of Microsoft's few new billion-dollar hits, it has one other key characteristic, hinted at in the Wikipedia entry above: it offers an effortless way for people to put content in to the system, but makes it very hard to get it out because of its proprietary lock-in."

Complete Story

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