In recent years, the talk in the Microsoft SharePoint world has been about how the platform is increasingly becoming a key strategic asset for organizational collaboration. We have seen many of our customers mature in their use of SharePoint and transition from using the platform as a higher-class file share or departmental document repository, to a more business-process focused platform which becomes the center of internal – and even external – collaboration for the entire organization. Some of these journeys have been faster than others, but as we look forward to the rest of 2015 and the state of the collaboration market, this evolution in the way organizations will leverage their investments in a platform like SharePoint is poised to accelerate significantly.
There are a few main drivers for this push toward a more strategic use of SharePoint:
Cost Savings: Folding the content and applications from legacy collaboration systems into SharePoint can offer significant savings, as license and maintenance fees are eliminated. SharePoint – especially with its app model – is better primed than ever to take the place of these legacy operations.
Platform Maturity: We are now seeing more organizations depend on SharePoint for their Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and records management needs. That represents a major shift and is a sign that the way the platform’s capabilities are viewed by IT executives have evolved.
Enterprise Features for All: Consider services that Microsoft is making available in Office 365, such as Information Rights Management as well as Delve and the Office Graph. These advanced feature sets were once difficult or impossible to consider as they required management and configuration resources that many organizations lacked, yet now – as hosted services – they are within reach for even the smallest organizations.
Microsoft General Manager for Office Product Management Julia White’s recent blog outlining the future of SharePoint in the cloud and on premises shows how Microsoft is positioning the product to further support and enhance this evolution of SharePoint. She mentions a continued focus on ECM as well as the extensibility and hybrid capabilities of the platform, and we at AvePoint will be here – just as we have been since the beginning of SharePoint in 2001 – supporting and enhancing those investments.
With that evolution in mind, today we are excited to launch the latest version of our enterprise-class infrastructure management platform for SharePoint, DocAve 6 Service Pack (SP) 5. Over the next week, we are publishing a series of blog posts on the exciting new capabilities we are delivering for DocAve, including:
Wednesday, February 11: Product Manager Shirley Zhang on DocAve Report Center’s new governance and compliance reporting functionality as well as End User Reporting web parts that empower business users to understand what content is being accessed, who is accessing it, and where consumers of their sites are finding the most value.
Thursday, February 12: Product Analyst Arthur Lynn on DocAve Backup and Restore’s ability to backup virtualized SharePoint components
Friday, February 13: Product Manager Terence Orpilla on DocAve Deployment Manager’s enhanced ability to deploy custom design elements, templates, SharePoint apps, and other customizations within or across site collections, regardless of whether they exist on-premises or in Office 365
Tuesday, February 17: Product Manager Daniel Wilkins on how DocAve Archiver now supports both complex ECM and records management strategies in SharePoint and also extends support for content lifecycle management into Office 365 – SharePoint Online.
This is just the beginning. There’s too much in the upcoming DocAve release to sum up in this introductory post, so I will leave it to our team of product managers to give you the details on the latest enhancements. This is an exciting time to be in the SharePoint world. We look forward to the continued evolution of the platform, and you can count on AvePoint and DocAve to be there for you as always – ready support your collaboration needs as they expand and mature into the future.
John Peluso is AvePoint’s Chief Technology Officer. In this role, he aligns the Company’s technology and product roadmaps to grow AvePoint’s market share, and accelerate the ideation, development, and launch of innovative software products tailored to anticipate customer needs. Prior to this role, John held multiple leadership roles over his 13-year tenure at AvePoint, including Chief Product Officer, SVP of Product Strategy, Director of Education, and Chief Technology Officer, Public Sector.
Before joining AvePoint, John served in a variety of technology and business roles at New Horizons Northeast and New Horizons of Central and Northern NJ. He earned his undergraduate degree from The New School.