Not the Death of SharePoint 2010 - The Dwindling of Knowledge and Professionals - Long Live SharePoint!

When I was first exposed to SharePoint it was with a consulting firm I still consider to be a collection of the best of the best developers, principals, and architects I'd worked with in my 30 years of having all of this fun.

SharePoint 2001 was still being supported by some of our team members for a half dozen major clients, and I was off to Redmond and around the US to enjoy the birth and delivery of MOSS - it's not just MOSS - It's MOSStastic!!! - A twist on an old Comcast commercial - thought I was smart, so I copyright it - and 2 years later, it's just SharePoint again. I've never hit the lotto or anything big like that.

All said - what I learned in the first 8 months, changed my career path for the next 10 years, and I have LOVED it!!! There is nothing like SharePoint, and all the big players, and all the small players that vied for our attention to try and help get their products to work with SharePoint - missed the wagon if they simply did not just re engineer their product offerings in SharePoint. I can name a dozen off the top of my head, but non-disclosure, non-compete, and tons of legal pterodactyls will plow me over if I remotely mention a one. But you get the idea.

Suffice to say, that 21 billion in R&D and marketing/deployment was well spent by Gates and company on Office 2007/MOSS 2007. A flagship product like none before or since, and it still continues to amaze me how well they're making it not only play friendly with all the competition - they're doing it with a smile on their face, a spring in their step, and a song in their hearts. Come on! It's MSFT!!! They've paid their dues to finally engineer something from the ethers of discussions over cold beers and a few chasers for several years at the local corner favorite spot. Unto MSFT, a child was born - out of the chaos of all they were currently mired in - they indeed, delivered on MOSS.

Now, despite their product support, shelf-life (remember, even we people have a shelf-life!!!), extended support, and so forth - put all that aside - it's a given with everything every vendor comes up with - almost.

What I saw in the past 10 years, and still live and kicking today - amazes and disappoints me beyond measure. Hell, even MSFT did not have one MCS consultant in the field with me that was SharePoint focused during the 2007 days - not until 2010 released, did they release their own personnel - and trust me - they are very good. I know that first-hand, and count myself one of the few lucky ones to work with them in the fields.

Where are the SharePoint Developers? SharePoint Administrators? SharePoint Architects!!!!???? Since 2008 I have done roughly 300 technical resume screenings. All start the same, and are fundamental and simple. When screening the architect or the developer - the questions invariably focus on the technology, and the candidate's resume, and how they say they've used SharePoint on any number of engagements. Of those 300? Probably 25 were serious contenders.

At the quote-unquote, death of SharePoint 2010, I still get 100% of SharePoint, and support, regardless of how I get it, I get that support. And I still have a product that, barring any major paradigm shifts in .NET, Windows, and core technologies like CRM, I have a platform and technology that will stand the test of time, support or not. I know one customer that kicked IBM to the floor, under the bus, and out the door, and for over 20+ years, have still maintained their own AS/400's without a hitch, and without IBM - almost exclusively.

If you have the skills and boots on the ground that know what they're doing, you have it made. The death of a flagship product is relative and subjective.

But today, 10 years post MOSS, I have a 12% pool of personnel that really do know what they're doing.

I have more than 500% of work to fill, but not 12% of the applicable candidates, that actually know what they're doing - and prove it.

I know from hard, first-hand, and trial by fire experience, that some of the largest solution consulting firms out there have botched some of the simplest to the more complex SharePoint deployments - consistently breaking all the rules, as if they're not evening referencing TechNet, MSDN - or the Installation Manuals??? COME ON!!!! Where are we today???

The Death of the Professional - where there is no residual support cost, long-term extended support cost, or multiple service packs, CU's, whatever. Just the brilliant individuals that have the capacity to create based on hard, solid, and real experience; not to mention, book sense, having read the docs, and not afraid of Google when the chips are down.

The Death of the Professional is to be lamented long ago, and ever-present on our agendas today - how do we remediate an industry we evolved into one of the largest on the globe, and subsequently surpassed the willingness? Or capacity of the professionals to keep pace and really know what they're doing?

Read all about the Slow Death of SharePoint starting here or here - any number of places I'm sure.

But lament the incredible influx of expensive, or cheap - consultants or even firms - that simply do not know what they're doing. So projects grow larger, more complex, invariably much more expensive, at the cost of those who preceded those who know what they're doing - and are simply striving to do what is best for the customer. Call the ball - and deliver a solution solid, under budget, and top-of-your-game.

I look forward to the swift death of the ineffectual, inefficient, 87% of those professionals that are simply there to make a buck - not a difference.

The passion and tenacity of those other 12% will prevail and we will see the dawn of not just another Tech Valley someplace - but across the globe - that passion that drives those who simply delight in what they do - will prevail, because you simply cannot make chicken salad out of chicken shit. Eventually, everyone learns - it still tastes like shit. (Sorry for the blunt outcry.)