I haven't posted for a while, because as I'm sure you're all aware, there are only so many minutes in the day and when you fill them with doing SharePoint, there is very little time to talk about SharePoint. What happened is that I got very busy with multiple designs and deployments for numerous customers, both large and small. My sales people seem to have gotten their brains wrapped around the product, too, so we're doing a lot of pre-sales work. It is a growing market and I appear to have it nearly cornered in my neck of the woods. No one else is offering SharePoint consulting services here.
We did another SharePoint demo today, presenting Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express, and I noticed a trend in customer reactions. Some customers get spooked by SharePoint just because it's so big. Although all the technicians in the room had an appreciation of the technical niceties of the product, the decision-maker-who is not very technical-grew overwhelmed by the potential complexity of setting it up and putting it to use. I know the salesman had wanted to keep things simple, but the technicians asked a lot of questions, which I did my best to answer.
Just before she left, I tried to assuage her concerns by saying that a lot of people take away different perceptions of SharePoint: some are interested in calendars, some in enterprise search, some in document sharing. They don't have to understand or even use the other parts; it doesn't need to be a holistic solution. She replied that unfortunately, she tends to think holistically. She said she might have to rethink her expectations for SharePoint, although she did mention there were several things she liked about it.
I went to lunch with my wife afterward and lamented this fact:
SharePoint, even the free versions, is simply too big. Unfortunately it's a Microsoft product, which means it's full featured and configurable to the nth degree. I tell people all this, but sometimes it doesn't turn out the way I intended. Some people get excited and think of the possibilities. Others become discouraged. I've had three demonstrations resulting in the latter.
My brilliant wife said, “Think of it this way. Getting SharePoint is like buying a piano. You can play it any way you want to. You can keep it simple and play chopsticks. You can keep it around for holidays and sing Christmas carols. You can put it to work and play hymns on it every day. Or you can perform masterpieces, like concertos by Chopin or Mozart. Even if you're just plinking away on two notes, you still have all the other keys, ready to use when you need them. SharePoint is a piano.”
I think that's the way to approach it.
moffitar