In one word, BIG. The 2009 SharePoint Conference attracted over 7,000 paying attendees, making it one of the largest Microsoft events of 2009. This is remarkable when you compare it to the 2009 Microsoft TechEd event, which drew about the same number of attendees and covers all Microsoft solutions. The buzz I heard on the show floor was that the event was "everything I expected and more" and that "the event should be offered twice a year."
One reason for its success is the rapid climb of SharePoint as an enterprise content management solution. Organizations are rapidly deploying SharePoint to better manage Office files and this is one reason for the strong interest in how to deploy and manage SharePoint. Second is the strong partner ecosystem that supports SharePoint. Hundreds of partners participated in the event and shared their tips and strategies on improving SharePoint.
SharePoint will continue to drive large audiences. SharePoint is a semi-customizable solution that in some sense depends on the creative sharing of the community to achieve its full potential. It is this active exchange of information that will continue to make SharePoint gatherings a success.
... Bob Spurzem
One Comment
Discovered a sharepoint accelerator product called Aptimize that looks quite promising apparently Microsoft themselves are using it.
Bob,
I agree with your comments about the conference and SharePoint in general. Microsoft has definitely motivated the partner ecosystem to fill in the holes and make a complete offering for customers. (For example, we help organizations deploying SharePoint to round out the user experience for ECM, email management and offline applications).
One of the big takeaways for me from Ballmer’s keynote was how Microsoft is positioning SharePoint as a very cost effective, and versatile platform to manage and share all types of enterprise content. For sure this includes ECM, but also records management, WCM, collaboration and social tools. As it grows both in capability and footprint, I think it will be hard to find any substantial organization that hasn’t deployed SharePoint for some, if not all, of it’s information management applications.
Barry Jinks,
Founder & CEO,
Colligo Networks, Inc.