With the impending launch of SharePoint 2010, Microsoft is taking one of its most popular products to new heights. SharePoint 2010 promises to change the way organizations think about collaboration, document sharing, application integration, workflow and more. It builds upon the essential concept of a “portal” with cutting-edge features that open up new worlds of possibilities.
FusionStorm’s mission is to help customers explore those worlds.
“SharePoint 2010 represents one of those rare technology investments that can improve the efficiency and operational capabilities of your business,” said Vince Conroy, CTO, FusionStorm. “Moving business processes into SharePoint 2010 not only makes it easier for people to collaborate — it solves fundamental business problems. Our goal is to help customers get the most value out of their existing Microsoft infrastructure, and we view the migration to SharePoint 2010 as a key step toward that goal.”
Star Qualities
SharePoint has been an undisputed success, and in many ways that success has led to the product’s evolution. Although many organizations derive value from SharePoint’s basic portal functionality, customers have found ways to leverage the platform for sophisticated applications such as business intelligence, content archival, project management and more.
“It has become somewhat limitless in terms of possibilities,” said Steve Soper, director of FusionStorm’s Enterprise Software Group. “Microsoft solicited feedback as to the open source and add-on products that other companies have developed, and ultimately built a lot of those features into SharePoint 2010.
“SharePoint 2010 has more robust application and data integration capabilities, making it easier to pull information from databases and other applications and integrate it directly into Web services. It also includes an improved workflow engine with a graphical design feature as well as integration with leading development tools. In addition, the Office 2010 suite leverages SharePoint 2010 as a content server, enabling you to do many sophisticated things with Office.”
“With this release, Microsoft is changing the way people think about the files they create using Office,” said Conroy. “Office is no longer a standalone application but something you use in conjunction with SharePoint as a true collaboration tool. Files are no longer something you put in a folder on a file server but something you store in a workspace on SharePoint. This integration was built into previous versions, but SharePoint 2010 makes it even easier for people to think in these terms.”
Mission Control
FusionStorm has the depth and breadth of expertise to help customers take maximum advantage of SharePoint 2010. From an architectural standpoint, FusionStorm engineers can design and implement a holistic SharePoint environment that meets the performance, security and availability requirements of a mission-critical, enterprise-class application. FusionStorm can also deliver SharePoint as a service.
“We can deploy SharePoint as a managed hosting solution on dedicated hardware or hosted in a cloud-type environment. These options are ideal for customers with budgetary constraints or who simply don’t want to add another hardware component to their data center,” Soper said. “We can also provide remote managed services to help administer SharePoint for customers that need supplemental expertise or 24x7 coverage. Our engineers have significant experience supporting the SharePoint platform in mission-critical environments.”
FusionStorm also has design and development resources for customers who want to leverage SharePoint as a Web publishing platform, either internally or externally. SharePoint can also support RSS feeds, blogs and other Internet-enabled content.
“We have helped customers use these features to allow marketing, sales and other divisions to post Web content dynamically. We’ve also done a lot of intranet deployments and lately have implemented SharePoint to replace ftp servers,” Soper said.
As a Microsoft Gold Partner, FusionStorm can help customers evaluate options from a financial perspective as well as from a technical and business perspective. There are many different ways to license SharePoint, which impacts the features and functionality that are available. FusionStorm can help customers choose the right options to meet their needs and budget.
“We provide end-to-end licensing and procurement capabilities,” said Conroy. “Or, again, we can deliver SharePoint in a hosting scenario as a monthly operational expense based upon the hardware, software, support and consulting services the customer requires. We optimize the value whether the customer wants to purchase a license or a software as a service solution.”
The Sky’s the Limit
Of course, FusionStorm has a strong history of application development and consulting services, which parlays well into the SharePoint environment. The FusionStorm application development team can meet with business users, understand their challenges and design a solution that solves those challenges using SharePoint as the framework.
“As SharePoint continues to grow and evolve, we spend a lot of time educating customers and helping them explore how the SharePoint platform can help meet their needs,” Soper said. “A lot of customers have seen the value of SharePoint in the intranet environment and are looking for help with publishing content for external audiences. What we’re saying is that SharePoint is much more than even that. We’re showing customers how they can leverage these features to meet many other business needs. It’s time to think of SharePoint strategically, as a mission-critical application, and that’s where FusionStorm comes in.”
SharePoint 2010 represents more than just a new product launch — it promises to usher in a new era. Organizations will see efficiency take off like a rocket and collaboration transcend space and time. With FusionStorm as a guide, organizations can explore new frontiers in collaboration, application integration and content management with SharePoint 2010.