SharePoint 2010 Opportunities in the Midmarket for Microsoft-Oriented ISVs

A Report by Mark R. Gilbert, James A. Browning

The capabilities of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 (MSS) related to document management, content management and collaboration have made basic functionality more accessible to midsize businesses. Feedback from midmarket clients indicates that SharePoint Foundation (Windows SharePoint Services [WSS] 4.0) is easy to use and provides "good enough" functionality. This had led to interest in evaluating the more advanced capabilities of MSS and the ability to build and integrate applications with their existing SharePoint environment.
Microsoft-oriented independent software vendors (ISVs) need to assess the costs and potential benefits of leveraging the SharePoint 2010 technology set and Microsoft ecosystem as a basis for both solution development and access to the Microsoft channel. Smaller vendors, in particular, will see their credibility increase among end users, as the issue of risk around vendor viability will be partly mitigated since the users will already have the skill set to maintain the content repositories, security and administration, workflow, database and related capabilities.