SharePoint Perspective – Hurry Up or Go Slow?
OK, it feels like I was just days into full recovery from writing the last SharePoint book with Scott Jamison and Sue Hanley when we have started talking about Table of Contents and delivery dates for the SharePoint 2010 version. Oh my!
As I started thinking about dates (beta, launch, SP1, etc.), it occurred to me that customers still looking to adopt SharePoint will hit a “fuzzy” period when choosing a version of SharePoint to start with will become more challenging. Here’s what I mean… Let’s assume that SharePoint 2010 launches in March 2010 (I don’t know that to be true; I am just putting it on the calendar). That means anyone who has deferred deployment of SharePoint 2007 until the beginning of 2010 (for budgetary reasons or otherwise) will be faced with a dilemma. Do you build and deploy on SharePoint 2007, knowing that an upgrade (of unknown effort) will be part of a short term roadmap? Or, do you go “bleeding edge” and jump on the new bits? Both appear to have unknown risks and costs.
For months, I have been telling current SharePoint customers that their intranet/extranet/internet sites have legs. If you buy into my March 2010 projected launch date, factor in some time for the wait for the “stabilizing SP1”, add time for testing of the upgrade, then schedule a launch it could easily be March 2011 before the latest version is presented to business users. That means you can safely continue to invest in the incremental improvements to your current SharePoint environment(s)… for months and months.
It seems that the folks that are in the toughest spot are those that are currently sitting on the fence, pondering a leap into the SharePoint pond but deferring activities until the brighter days of the new economy. Is it better to hurry up and begin SharePoint activity in the latter part of this year so that an upgrade might be a phase 3 or 4 initiative? Or, is it better to wait things out, embrace the latest and greatest (that will most certainly have its own collection of cool features and must-have business functionality) on the flip side.
Is it better to hurry up or go slow? I’m not sure (yet)… but I do know that, once again, it will cost more to not plan well.