I had previously visited Sharepoint’s homepage looking for a definition of what it is. This is what I found:

What is SharePoint?
​Microsoft SharePoint 2010 makes it easier for people to work together. Using SharePoint 2010, your people can set up Web sites to share information with others, manage documents from start to finish, and publish reports to help everyone make better decisions.

Trust me, this is a better description of what it is, compared to what they had there a few months back. However, this does not really tell me anything, or help me in any way to make a better business case to sell it to an organization.

Also, as part of the conversation, I asked them to tell me what Sharepoint was, and how to define it. Surprise! Each gave me a different answer, with nothing in common between them. I told them what I thought, that it had no clear definition of what it was or how it was useful.

So, one of them told me something that is true: “It is selling like hot cakes”.

His comment made me think: Who really cares how your product is defined, if it is a best-seller? Who cares what people like me think, when they can’t keep up with the demand for implementations at organizations big and small?

Is it really that important to have a clear message for your audience, for your target market, when it is selling better than expected?

What do you think?

Post from: Strategic IT Planning Blog, by Andres Vivas.

Sharepoint Marketing?

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Microsoft, Sharepoint

I was taken aback by the amount of resources that big organizations have to dedicate to something like this. I understand that news circulating about this virus magnify the issue and management gets alarmed about it.

The reason number one why we are dealing with this problem is that Microsoft’s Operative system had a vulnerability, they released a patch in October 15, 2008 and still today many computers have not been updated (find instructions on what to do next here).

I understand this happening to mom and pop, where there is no support or any technical help, and in many cases the computer is just a device to be used to see the kids’ pictures.

I find it unacceptable that this situation happens in mid size and big organizations, where there is a clear understanding of how IT helps the business and we all know the importance of keeping our computers up to date.

If you are the IT lead for your organization, how can you make sure the technology is being maintained correctly? What processes and procedures have you put in place to avoid this type of events?

I understand that a virus causes disruption when nobody knows about the vulnerability and the hackers and virus developers exploit it. But almost 6 months after the fix has been released? And it affecting big organizations?

If that is the case, we in IT are responsible for this big failure. I don’t think we can justify it in any way. Good thing this is happening in April 1st, so we all can look like fools if we are actually impacted by this.

What are you doing to make sure something like this does not affect you and your organization?

Post from: Strategic IT Planning Blog, by Andres Vivas.

When a virus disrupts your business life

Technorati Tags: conficker, IT suppot, Microsoft, virus