I admit it. When I first saw SharePoint demo'ed at an ECM Conference, I turned to the Documentum-loving architects sitting on either side of me and said, "Wow! These screens are so much friendlier than Documentum's."

By "friendlier," I meant that they looked like WINDOWS.

My conference-mates gave me a dirty look. They hate most things Microsoft. I suspect that their reasons have less to do with user-experience than with the fact that Microsoft's architecture is so closed.  I challenged them on this when we went to lunch, after all, does a user care if something is open source or proprietary?

Documentum isn't open source, either, by the way.

My Documentum-buddies morphed into software analysts and began evangelizng on SharePoint's shortcomings- specifically on how it handles structured and unstructured content, complex documents, validation and security...

Now, I'm too smart to argue when I know I'm outside my league, but I did ask them when they last heard of a renegade user displaying his music collection in an eRoom (someone at Pfizer used SharePoint to do that, according to one of the presenters.).

Besides, IT departments should want users to be enthused by and engaged in technology, shouldn't they? (Or is there a need to curb their enthusiasm?)

Back to SharePoint, it seems like a whole lot of people, other than me, have bought into its promises; Bill Gates says SharePoint sales will exceed $1 billion this year.

That's a whole lot of software.

Gates says SharePoint's success is due to, "the result of the great combination of collaboration and information management capabilities it delivers."

Others aren't so sure. After all, don't many companies already own collaboration, document management, and content management products like eRoom, Lotus Notes, EMC Documentum, Interwoven Teamsite or BEA Aqualogic Interaction ?

If so, then isn't buying SharePoint redundant, kind of like buying a MINI when you already have a Rolls Royce?

What if the MINI is more comfortable and less bulky than the Rolls, that's the argument SharePoint lovers are making. Besides, they go on, you have to consider that it's cheaper to operate and requires little or no driver training.

They may have forgotten to consider that their new purchase needs to be armored and secure (or maybe they think that it is.)

So while first-generation ECM vendors continue to sell their products based on promises of safety and protection (spelled COMPLIANCE), they're pasting Play's nice with SharePoint stickers on their products to make their bulk tolerable.

Industry experts predict that it will take a year, or so, before SharePoint users start shouting that SharePoint doesn't deliver on all of its promises. When they do, IBM's sitting pretty, they've just built a product that provides a way out; it's called Quickr.

I haven't seen the product yet, but I can imagine the sizzle.