E2.0 emerged as a hot button after SharePoint 2007’s feature set was finalized – sometime in mid 2006. IMHO, SharePoint itself isn’t as much of the problem as SharePoint’s lengthy product cycle is and may or may not continue to be. For example, the “asymmetric follow” pattern was supported way back in SharePoint 2003’s MySites. SharePoint even had “activity streams” before Facebook popularized the News Feed concept though SharePoint’s activity streams were/are limited to actions within MySites rather than anywhere within SharePoint, which would have addressed the current silo’ing problem caused by the rapid proliferation of SharePoint team sites. I could go on, but like I said before, there’s really no point (pun intended) to dwell on the past.

At Telligent, as a close Microsoft partner in this space, we have the benefit of getting numerous referrals from MS account teams for SharePoint customers, who need best of breed E2.0 tools and capabilities. In some cases, the introduction of Telligent technology into the customer’s environment marginalizes the use of SharePoint for social computing apps. Some MS teams are okay with that while other teams aren’t, which is understandable. In most cases, Telligent and SharePoint coexist just fine. We’re not trying to replace SharePoint (though I can’t say that it’s never happened); just complement and/or supplement where it makes sense for the customer.

What I have noticed is that many of the people complaining about SharePoint don’t appreciate the value of SharePoint as a platform for other important apps (document/records management, workflow, LOB integration) within an enterprise. E2.0 tools, much like IM from several years ago, are just a small albeit fast growing portion of the overall Business Productivity Infrastructure that every company needs. It’s amusing to me that some so-called E2.0 vendors actually believe that they’re “social stack” is all that a business needs to get work done. Business involves a lot more than just being social. 🙂