Peter's Technology Trumpet : SharePoint

DIY or DIFM?

SmallCountry — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:39:50 GMT

Followers of the Trumpet know of my missionary zeal for Office Live. This at-a-stroke solution to web site and business applications for small businesses on blog and has won a strong following amongst Scotland's SME's with around 3500 sign-ups as of January.

My interest was initially driven by the vested interest of getting Mrs. Ferry's property business Kurekodu online. At the cost of a few hours effort I banged up a reasonable looking website to drive a healthy supply of web sales leads and a extranet to drive customer billing more efficiently. I quickly realised that the proposition is unbeatable - a free domain, company email and a simpleton website editor giving smart looking site within hours all for nowt.

The proposition has further improved since February's rename to Office Live Small Business.

As well as an easing of the signup process (punters can now sign up without having to enter a credit card or decide on a domain name) this heralded a significant rework of the Office Live Web designer. The upgrade makes the web design process more flexible for the partner (who can switch on the advanced web design features which might be scary for the small biz punter) but keeps things simple for the non-technical user with an Office-style user interface.

Integrated advertising, email marketing and comprehensive analytics make it possible for the Office Live platform to be a serious web channel for the on-line business. Take-up of OLSB by small companies needing a professional looking website is accelerating, look at www.justwinches.co.uk and as well as web phenomenon www.kurekodu.co.uk .

However, there is evidence that most would rather have a web artist do if for them - so its Do It For Me rather than DIY. Several web design companies have launched services targeting Office Live website design, including fixed price web design and support packages including Coderight (with a bunch of custom templates, and ChooBoo Live who build the whole thing for you and charge ongoing support for changes and other value adds.

In Scotland business startups increased 5.3% last year. Many are the smallest sole trader/small businesses not VAT or PAYE registered for whom this kind of web-in-a-box service is most relevant. There are estimated to be 277,000 of these in Scotland so 3500 Scottish subscribers is significant for this technology-shy sector.

Office Live Small Business includes a number of useful business applications. These have been enhanced in v2, with the simple Contact Manager perhaps the most useful - to share contacts amongst employees. As the small business builds its clientele, these contacts can be used to drive the closed loop email marketing feature. Leads can enter their details through the public website using an integrated "Contact me" form. This example of web front end/business app back end integration showcases the Forms Designer/List Publisher aspect of Office Live Small Business - its simple to publish forms on the website which drive business applications at the back end - likewise its easy to publish data to the public website. Previously such web site functionality would require custom development which is out of the reach of most small businesses.

Writing powerful business applications which take advantage of the Office Live public website and back office SharePoint platform is the larger opportunity for partners. This is "cloud computing" for the small business. Crafty web developers can build powerful applications by mashing Sharepoint's data with their own and 3rd party web services.

Many Microsoft partners are making a very good living building on the SharePoint platform. Office Live Small business is an opportunity to package those skills and offer them at scale to small businesses. In response to demand from partners, the Office Live team have included a solution packager in v2 - this allows a partner to package up all solution elements including public website templates, business applications (including data schema in the form of SharePoint lists, business logic in SharePoint workflow, etc) and provision these to a new customer's office live subscription.

For the full lowdown on Office Live v2 a good resource is the reviewers guide - further insight from Chris's Unofficial Office Live page and from Darren Johnston, Solution Canvas ace developer of Justia who promises he will start blogging about Office Live again just as soon as he is a bit less busy.

Membership has its privileges

SmallCountry — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:26:06 GMT

Starting a business is hard. Making it successful and keeping it growing is harder.

In our Global Village even smallest business must constantly keep in touch with the competition, the changing market, and find new customers and opportunities. Certainly that's been the experience of Mrs. Ferry since starting out in business 12 months ago.

Thus the role of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce is key - they support indigenous business, represent them at political and international level, and provide a vital network for entrepreneurs to collaborate, establish new partnerships and find new customers.

The Chambers is a venerable institution with 10,000s of company members across Scottish Small, Medium and Enterprise business, accounting for well over half of the private sector jobs in Scotland. They are seen as an exemplar for Chambers of Commerce organisations worldwide, and engage in productive relationships with their business partners such as Microsoft. Indeed HRH The Princess Royal, President of the Scottish Chambers, summed it up when she said:

The work of the Chambers of Commerce is very worthy of our support, as they exist to promote businesses locally, nationally and internationally. Scotland’s Chambers of Commerce are well placed to assist businesses of all sizes to help expand their activities at home and overseas using the worldwide network of Chambers of Commerce.

Liz Cameron, Executive Director of Scottish Chambers, knows that the Chambers must evolve from its regional footing to meet the changing needs of their members, and the evolving challenges of business.

When a delegation of the regional Scottish Chamber organisations visited the Microsoft UK head office late last year to discuss these challenges, she explained to me that the benefits of Chamber membership must be national and international rather than locally focussed - the ability to deliver services efficiently to their membership at a national level could make the Chambers network more modern and efficient, and help grow membership and spread benefits to a larger audience. Liz announced her planned shakeup and Microsoft's role in Scotland on Sunday a few weeks back.

Technology has an important role to play as the Chambers modernise and confirm their role amongst other business membership and networking organisations, and online business networking services.

The impact of social network services on business has been huge - LinkedIn now has over 10 million users, mostly in the United States of America http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/12/01/8394967/index.htm

Many believe social networks are for teenagers and blind daters. However, business social networks allow members to describe themselves and their companies services, and invite people they know and respect to "connect" and be part of their network. They can then recommend and introduce colleagues on a global scale, creating an efficient business network and thus oiling the cogs of the free market economy. Such networks rely on 6 degrees of separation theory which assert that any 2 individuals are connected by at most 6 others.

LinkedIn registration is free, but it soon makes money out of members through advertising (based on the topics in a member's description). Some members, such as those involved in recruitment, pay for "added value" membership services (such as searching for individuals outwith the immediate business network).

Meanwhile back in Scotland, the Chambers position is unique. Hundreds of years old, and with an long established membership and reputation, most people join the Chambers for the networking opportunity of Scottish Chambers events and are already willing to pay membership fees for the privilege.

Taking the Chambers membership online, and activating member online social networking would drive more members of the network, establish a positive feedback loop to make the network more valuable and even provide an online channel for foreign business to find the right skills and resources to trade in Scotland.

With this in mind Microsoft Scotland have just completed the "proof of concept" Scottish Chambers members Portal - codenamed CONNECTIONS - to deliver a unified set of member services, and the Chambers shop window to the world. This portal takes advantage of Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server collaboration and portal capabilities, and was delivered in collaboration with David Elder, Technical Director of Scottish Chambers.

CONNECTIONS provides the rich set of Chambers services at a national level:

Members can gain access to specialist news and articles based on their industry area. They can engage in industry or job function specific discussion forums to get questions answered.
They can search the member directory to find skills and business partners to help advance their enterprise
To support the Chambers role in influencing policy, members opinions can quickly be polled using online surveys

Most exciting though, is the opportunity to build online connections between members to build informal business networks. Existing members can send an invitation email to those colleagues not already in the Chambers to join the network as a registered online member. Members will more readily reach the skills, experience and assets of corporate Scotland.

This could be the "killer app" driving Chambers membership, and perhaps making Connections the LinkedIn of Scotland.

Ultimately this will drive a more efficient market and support the entrepreneurship which will build Scotland's impact on the world business stage.

With Scotland's skilled business players online and linked via the Connections portal, there is fantastic opportunity for business people who wish to give something back to society by sharing their skills and experience. Connections could support other organisations which support Scottish entrepeneurialism in small an startup business, such as Local Enterprise Companies, Scottish Enterprise Business Gateway, and the fantastic work of Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust.

If Scottish Chambers can move quickly, my colleagues and I believe that Connections presents a fantastic opportunity for the Chambers network in Scotland to re-establish and re-invigorate its role at the centre of business life, and potentially become THE business portal for Scotland.

Office Live or Die...

SmallCountry — Thu, 10 May 2007 12:43:41 GMT

Regular readers of this column will be aware of Mrs. Ferry's limited grasp of technology, so she of course immediately turned to her in-house IT provider. However, as a busy executive at the cutting edge of high-tech, I am of course too busy cutting million dollar deals and mixing with captains of industry to do anything as mundane as set up a website or register an email domain. As for backing up files in case the kids knock a glass of milk over the laptop - completely out of the question.

It has therefore been interesting to help Mrs. Ferry start a new business over the past year or so. The Kurekodu property business, like most microbusinesses, needed

a website to attract and inform potential clients, and give the feel of a well-run and professional outfit
a "corporate sounding" URL and email address....(e.g. CHiefExecutive@WeAreABigReputableCompany.COM style)
somewhere safe to store all the invoices, marketing and financial business documents being generated

So Office Live was a means to obtain a professional result with the minimum of time invested. Office Live lets one-man-bands and microbusiness get online in a matter of minutes, with a minimum of IT savvy required. It's going live on May 23rd, although already there are around 1800 Scottish businesses online with Office Live websites. (Including the highly informative and successful Just Winches site - if you find yourself in need of a winch, that's the place to go)

This "quick and easy" appeal has been borne out by the Kurekodu experience. After registering for the Office Live Premium service, the Kurekodu website was up and running within 2 hours, built using the Office Live Web Designer. This is a simple, elegant AJAX browser based application, which lets business owners define a simple theme and navigation for their site, and create a basic set of professional looking pages. That is a real boon for the small business owner, whom without the luxury of an IT department, would normally have to pay for a web designer to do this, and understand the more arcane aspects of registering domain names etc.

Even the non-techno-savvy Mrs. Ferry regularly uses this application to modify the property for sale web page when Kurekodu offers a new property for sale or rent. The Web Designer also let her quickly "sex up" the website, with animated picture galleries and simple web forms which send an alert email when a customer makes a web enquiry.

She was also delighted to purchase further domains (making the site available over kurekodu.co.uk, kurekodu.com and houseinestonia.com) addresses to make the site easier to find, and having registered on Google and Windows Live Search engines, is building up the site to make it top of the pops for likely internet searches.

However, apart from the ease of establishing an effective internet shop front, the most dramatically useful aspects of Office Live have been its business applications.

Office Live gives businesses not only a public-facing website, but also supports secure workspaces for documents, contacts, lists, photos - indeed any kind of business information. Kurekodu's MD (the technophobe Mrs. Ferry) and her associates in Estonia use this to collaboratively create particulars for properties for sale, and to build invoices for the companies' services. These are all secured using Windows Live ID (formerly passport) and kept up on the Kurekodu private site where they are safe, backed up, without the version confusion caused by email tennis.

What's more, these important business documents can be shared securely with customers (indeed anybody signed up for a Windows Live ID), so they can track service charges for their investments under Kurekodu's management. That's a secure extranet collaboration solution delivered at a miniscule IT cost.

But Office Live Business Applications are the really exciting area for small businesses. These make available powerful business tools to the small business previously available only to companies with £10,000s a year to spend on IT. Kurekodu runs a simple Accounting application on Office Live, to maintain profit/loss account for each property investment, or client property under management. Its by no means a complex application, but is customised to the company's business niche, is an online, hosted application and hence available to all staff regardless of where they are based, and works offline through its integration with Access 2007. Currently Kurekodu's hard working IT Director (yours truly) is building a Reporting application so that the MD can be kept properly informed of the profitability of each customer and property investment.

As Office Live is built on the Windows Sharepoint Services 2007 platform, these powerful business application capabilities will come as no surprise to any of Microsoft's Business Partners. Many are already building Office Live solutions to take their applications downstream and target smaller business customers, such as Solution Canvas with Justia , whom I blogged about a while back. Such industry-focused applications used to automate business processes without having any nasty servers or difficult software applications to install, made available by subscription, are very attractive to small businesses with no time or funds to invest in an overly complex IT strategy.

Clearly for any Small business IT company Office Live and services like it cannot be ignored. Despite its limitations today, for many small businesses this is enough to support business functions with the minimum of fuss. Clearly its a case of Office Live or Die...

SharePoint Sleeper

SmallCountry — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:53:24 GMT

I was interested to see this article in the Wall St. Journal confirming the established position of Microsoft's greatest stealth technology - SharePoint 2007.

Several of the Scottish Microsoft Partners I work with closely have invested huge time and effort in preparing for the latest iteration of SharePoint technologies which became broadly available earlier this year. Charteris, Avanade Scotland and Company Net are all working on Sharepoint 2007 solutions for customers which to be delivered imminently.

Chelford SFM have built a fantastic "Sharepoint Test Drive" which allows customers to quickly get to grips with how they can use SharePoint to

"create a single interface to a common environment within which documents and files can be managed, information and data collected and presented, users can collaborate and communicate in virtual spaces and global document searches are carried out with relative ease" - David Gardiner, Director, Chelford Solutions for Microsoft

Through Machiavellian Microsoft software licensing agreements, many companies find that their employees are entitled to use the Standard version of SharePoint 2007. Jeff Teper, the VP of Microsoft's SharePoint product group who has been most helpful to Microsoft Scottish customers as the SharePoint technologies have evolved throughout the current decade, claims 85 million SharePoint licenses across 17,000 companies are in circulation.

Microsoft's customers and partners have a great opportunity to make better use of the new capabilities they have inherited in Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007. These capabilities are very wide in scope and potential business impact.

More specifically SharePoint is a modular toolset covering the popular enterprise information management categories of Collaboration, Portal, Business Intelligence, and Content management. To this it adds Search, Business Forms and Workflow capabilities, and architectural support for Intranet, Internet and Extranet deployment. The icing on the cake is that this wide-ranging information management platform works closely with the Office desktop, meaning that end-users can very quickly be productive with new applications built on Sharepoint.

As such, not only can SharePoint be used to address the "usual" content management and information access problems that exist in any organisation, it can also be used as a common platform to build business process solutions which rely on workflow, forms and structured data. The application templates on TechNet, and the huge volume of Microsoft Partner value added SharePoint solutions on the Office Solution directory are testament to this.

The sheer scale of these capabilities can be disconcerting for those considering SharePoint technologies as a solution to business issues. To those I would recommend attending one of Chelford's test drive events in Glasgow or Edinburgh, or if you prefer to DIY sign up for a hosted Office Live site.

Link to Microsoft Embeds Sleeper in Business Software - WSJ.com

Technorati tags: SharePoint, Office Live, Collaboration