Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Meet AvePoint: Spotlight on the Product Management Team

Welcome everyone to our next “Spotlight on AvePoint” feature. This week, with some wrangling and effort, we’ve managed to hold down some members of our Product Management team long enough to get a few words from them. Our Product Managers drive the direction of our products and help us stay ahead of the curve in the marketplace. Let’s hear what some of them have to say:​

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Joanna Wen Esther Li
Edward Cedeno​ Shyam Oza

 

SharePoint is a relatively new technology by most standards. What was it that drove you to want to be a part of the “SharePoint revolution?

[Joanna Wen] SharePoint is changing the way people work and do business. By being a part of the AvePoint team, the leader in the SharePoint ecosystem, I know I’ll be able to make significant contributions to increase technology-business alignment and enable organizations to meet their bottom line.

[Esther Li] Who doesn’t like a good revolution? New technology is exciting; it’s an open field to play on with so many possibilities. DocAve is always changing with the SharePoint environment, and it changes the way the world does business.

[Edward Cedeno] SharePoint is an opportunity for companies in any industry to reduce costs by consolidating legacy systems and increasing efficiencies. DocAve is the SharePoint ECM catalyst and I wanted to be a part of that. The double digit growth doesn’t hurt either.

[Shyam Oza] Microsoft is really setting something new into motion with SharePoint and I really want to be where the revolution is, not watching from the sidelines. The SharePoint and DocAve communities are a serious and dedicated group. They care about what happens to the products, they want the latest and greatest features but they don’t sit around and wait for it. These people are actively participating in Share Point, shaping the product and shaping our product too.

What’s the biggest challenge that you face in trying to plan and build products around SharePoint?

[Joanna] The flexibility and extensibility of SharePoint allows for many creative ideas and solutions around the platform. The biggest challenge is my wanting to do it all, and wanting it all done yesterday!

[Esther] Because SharePoint is flexible, DocAve has to keep up. It’s impossible to do everything overnight, so we have to strategize how to meet all the needs of our customers, and make our products work most efficiently within our customers’ environments. High demand is a good problem to have.

[Edward] It is always great to talk to customers to understand their business needs and determine how best to meet these needs with our solutions. I suppose the biggest challenge would be in meeting the needs of individual customers while still maintaining a cohesive platform. Our organic growth has made this feasible and DocAve 6 does a great job in demonstrating why we are the only complete SharePoint solution.

[Shyam] What’s important is to remember the bottom line: SharePoint and DocAve aren’t just collections of fancy GUIs, these are real tools designed to have real, meaningful results. Companies look to SharePoint as a repository, a collaboration tool and even a platform for building front-end websites.

The greatest challenge is making sure that DocAve products improve and enhance SharePoint, not limit it. There is so much to do and every day you’re given a new feature request or are presented with a new problem that needs a solution. It can be tough to prioritize what makes it and what has to wait.

Wha is your favorite feature in SharePoint?​

[Joanna] My favorite feature is also one of the most powerful features of SharePoint 2010 – managed metadata. From a governance perspective, it brings consistency, manageability and just better user experience overall.

[Esther] The ‘Easy’ button in the ribbon labeled ‘DocAve.’ No, really, SharePoint is highly customizable and easy to use. It supports complete web parts, integrated apps, and many options to help you make it look and work the way you envisioned it. For the more detailed users, there’s PowerShell too.

[Edward] There are so many to choose from including social features like MySite, tagging, blogging, ratings, blogs, wikis, discussion boards. There is also the ribbon, improved compliance features, business connectivity services, federated search but if I had to choose one, it would have to be Managed Metadata. It is a simple concept, but sophisticated and incredibly powerful. This has become a cornerstone for SharePoint as a compliant ECM system.

[Shyam] It’s really hard to pick just one, but I think one of the coolest features is the ability to collaborate on a single document at the same time. The concept that two people, on opposite ends of the Earth, can work on something as if they are shoulder to shoulder, is awesome.

Our Product Managers are extremely busy cooking up the next big thing for DocAve, and I’d like to thank them for taking a quick second to sit down with me. For a preview of their hard work and some new upcoming DocAve additions, check out our DocAve 6 Public Beta program. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for our next spotlight on AvePoint!

 

-Alex
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