Too Soon for SharePoint 2010?
I tweeted this last night: “Am I the only one who thinks that spending a lot of time on #SP2010 right now is premature?” and I’ve gotten quite a few interesting responses. I figured I’d start a blog post on this and add in the replies as I get them (see the bottom of this post). Feel free to comment here as well!
I’m not trying to be a provocateur with the question. I follow some of the brightest bulbs in SharePoint-land and reading their tweets and blog posts, I hear a lot of furstration about things that don’t work in the SharePoint 2010 Beta. It’s a beta, so that’s to be expected, and I’m not dissing Microsoft in any way. I just wonder how much energy should go into SharePoint 2010 right now.
There’s an entire ecosystem around SharePoint, and that ecosystem needs to be well versed in SharePoint 2010 before RTM (Release to Manufacturing, for those not up on Microsoft acronyms). By that ecosystem, I mean those of us who are consultants, system integrators, trainers, and the like. But should *everyone* be digging deeply into SharePoint 2010? Might we not learn bad habits when we’re forced to come up with workarounds for bugs or missing functionality? Might we not get a bad impression of perfectly good software that isn’t ready yet?
I’m as fascinated with some of the new concepts in SharePoint 2010 as just about anyone. Some of the new taxonomy ideas are things I’ve been building (or trying to build) into solutions for a good 15 years. The new UI is far spiffier than the MOSS/WSS 3.0 UI (though I’m trying to do my small part to improve the MOSS/WSS 3.0 UI with jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services). But is it really time?
@jthake: RT @sympmarc: Am I the only one who thinks that spending a lot of time on #SP2010 right now is premature? >> Premature SharePointCulation?
@pndrw: @sympmarc It’s not to early to start learning #SP2010 if you want to be ready go when we get to RTM. There’s lots to learn
@jeffbecraft: RT @sympmarc Am I only one thinks spending time on #SP2010 now is premature? – agree:users; disagree: hosters, consultants, product co’s
@andrewwalmsley: @sympmarc If own time or nothing to do fine, but suspect some are way to early.Maybe 2007 work is drying up,like it did with 2003/7 :-(
@andrewwalmsley: @sympmarc many peeps will be earning money from early ‘heads up’ type information on #sp2010 for their clients and conferences.
@brianroche: @sympmarc there is way too much in the feature set to not spend any time on it. If you want to bet hedge focus on new features only.
@CStahl: @sympmarc #SP2010 – I have to think and focus on my 2007 customers for a long time on, but how can I keep my fingers away from 2010?
At the end of the day, if you want to be in a position to provide technical service, support or strategic direction at RTM there is no time to waste. As others have said, there is a lot to learn. In the corporate world where WSS3 or MOSS 2007 are already heavily adopted, the migration to 2010 will be slow and full of roadblocks. That said, now is the time of testing and demonstration of what the new product offers, to give momentum to the strategic direction–even moreso if you’re fighting for funding for the 2010 calendar year!