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I wonder if SharePoint has a future in Microsoft's strategy re-alignment. SharePoint (evolved as Office Server) is a beast of software and many awkward enginee

by frik 13y ago

I wonder if SharePoint has a future in Microsoft's strategy re-alignment. SharePoint (evolved as Office Server) is a beast of software and many awkward engineering & design choices from the 2003 era are still visible to the end user. And I am not even touching the XHTML tabled based layout with thousands of CSS rules, Silverlight & ActiveX controls, bad WebDAV support, "SharePoint Groups", low soft & hard limits for file size, file count in folders, etc. It has of course also it good values for companies. Like the Office integration, the Office ribbon UI and some document management options that are missing from Windows Explorer thanks to the failed attempt to release WinFS in the Longhorn era. Microsoft also discontinued InfoPath, the WYSIWYG form designer that is part of Office 2003-2013 and the InfoPath form services hosted on top of SharePoint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_InfoPath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_InfoPath Will Microsoft rewrite (or refactor) SharePoint and its form services from the ground up? Or will SharePoint 2015(?) be a rehashed v2013? And will Windows 9 come with an improved Explorer and NTFS/ReFS with better document management capabilities like that were planned for WinFS or "Microsoft Semantic Engine"?

arethuza 13y ago
I suspect the curse of backwards compatibility might cause a problem - there are so many systems that have dependencies on SharePoint (including a lot of Microsoft's own products). I found this page the other day which talks about the non-trivial process of picking the right API for talking to SharePoint: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj164060%28v=office.15%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj164060%28v=... The diagram trying to explain how the different APIs relate is a pretty good visualization of the problems that anyone trying to refactor SharePoint would face.
- jamin 13y ago
  It is widely known that 2013 will be the last version of SharePoint. Everything will be an incremental upgrade from now on with customisations decoupled from SharePoint through 'Apps' working off web services.
  - uberb00t 13y ago
    At SharePoint Conference 2014 the product team specifically announced that there will be a SharePoint vNext released on-premises, released in the summer of 2015, presumably to be named SharePoint 2016. Apps are being pushed hard for all customizations so as to decouple code from the "core" of SharePoint so as to allow for a better upgrade strategy. That being said, I do see Yammer as replacing a lot of functionality within SharePoint over the next 2-3 years, but I believe SharePoint as a product (especially as it relates to document management and search) will continue to exist for at least another 4-5 years.
bananas 13y ago
You'll be pleased to know that the work item side of Team Foundation appears to be based on SharePoint and they're heavily marketing that at the moment. Kill me now.
7952 13y ago
>> Will Microsoft rewrite (or refactor) SharePoint and its form services from the ground up? Or will SharePoint 2015(?) be a rehashed v2013? And will Windows 9 come with an improved Explorer and NTFS/ReFS with better document management capabilities like that were planned for WinFS or "Microsoft Semantic Engine"? It would be better to build something on top of Outlook and Onenote. New file systems will only be useful if the metadata survives email which would require email integration anyway.
- frik 13y ago
  The first version of Sharepoint was a portal server built on Outlook/Exchange. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharepoint#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharepoint#History Another product team pages evolved from Frontpage server extension. Both products merged to what is known as Sharepoint 2003. Most of the functionallity is still in Outlook client. You can also sync Sharepoint sites with Outlook and access your document libraries offline.

by frik 13y ago

arethuza 13y ago

I suspect the curse of backwards compatibility might cause a problem - there are so many systems that have dependencies on SharePoint (including a lot of Microsoft's own products). I found this page the other day which talks about the non-trivial process of picking the right API for talking to SharePoint: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj164060%28v=office.15%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj164060%28v=... The diagram trying to explain how the different APIs relate is a pretty good visualization of the problems that anyone trying to refactor SharePoint would face.

jamin 13y ago
It is widely known that 2013 will be the last version of SharePoint. Everything will be an incremental upgrade from now on with customisations decoupled from SharePoint through 'Apps' working off web services.
- uberb00t 13y ago
  At SharePoint Conference 2014 the product team specifically announced that there will be a SharePoint vNext released on-premises, released in the summer of 2015, presumably to be named SharePoint 2016. Apps are being pushed hard for all customizations so as to decouple code from the "core" of SharePoint so as to allow for a better upgrade strategy. That being said, I do see Yammer as replacing a lot of functionality within SharePoint over the next 2-3 years, but I believe SharePoint as a product (especially as it relates to document management and search) will continue to exist for at least another 4-5 years.

bananas 13y ago

You'll be pleased to know that the work item side of Team Foundation appears to be based on SharePoint and they're heavily marketing that at the moment. Kill me now.

7952 13y ago

>> Will Microsoft rewrite (or refactor) SharePoint and its form services from the ground up? Or will SharePoint 2015(?) be a rehashed v2013? And will Windows 9 come with an improved Explorer and NTFS/ReFS with better document management capabilities like that were planned for WinFS or "Microsoft Semantic Engine"? It would be better to build something on top of Outlook and Onenote. New file systems will only be useful if the metadata survives email which would require email integration anyway.

frik 13y ago
The first version of Sharepoint was a portal server built on Outlook/Exchange. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharepoint#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharepoint#History Another product team pages evolved from Frontpage server extension. Both products merged to what is known as Sharepoint 2003. Most of the functionallity is still in Outlook client. You can also sync Sharepoint sites with Outlook and access your document libraries offline.