Microsoft pushes SharePoint into the cloud

04.04.2011
Microsoft's SharePoint platform has grown "really large, really fast" and there are significant "challenges" that the company needs to focus on, says Joel Oleson, a former Microsoft employee who specialised in the product.

Oleson worked for Microsoft developing SharePoint for 10 years, but three years ago he moved to consultancy Quest. He was in New Zealand recently to address the third annual SharePoint conference held in Wellington.

"SharePoint is not an easy product to deploy. Microsoft portrays it as such," Oleson claims.

In its early days he says it was a comparatively straightforward tool for document sharing, collaboration and portal creation.

"Now we see full-on applications being built on it; incredible websites have been designed with its publishing features; it supports business intelligence front ends to sales and finance. It has become business critical, even mission-critical. It has come a long way."

With Microsoft pushing SharePoint into the cloud he says, "it has become many things to many people.