What’s going on with SharePoint 2013… Upgrade Insights

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Joel Oleson

I have been having a lot of conversations with SharePoint folks and even participated in a debate on using SharePoint 2010 vs. 2013. Why was this session at SPTechcon a sold out, standing room only session? There has been a reluctance to simply upgrade to SharePoint. A lot of confusion exists around social as I mentioned in my previous post. Microsoft will be pushing cloud and yammer as driving the social fabric for a long time. Get use to it. What hasn’t been clear is the roadmap for On Premise. There is FUD being spread around about whether it will have a roadmap, and Bill Bear (SharePoint Technical Product Management) assures us that both cloud, hybrid and on premise will be around for some time to come. Don’t get confused when all MS seems to talk about is cloud.

I’ve been wondering what is is that is keeping people from upgrading…

Upgrade Poll

Those not involved in the yammer.com/spyam community may not have seen or participated in this survey. I encourage you to please weigh in. I think this does send a message to Microsoft about the importance of sharing the roadmap with lack of a TAP program or with lack of sharing details with the influencers there’s a lot of concern in the community of the path and direction for SharePoint on Premise. SharePoint 2010 was a very solid product, and Microsoft will have a big challenge ahead of them as SharePoint 2010 gets cemented further and further entrenched as people feel Microsoft has lost their way.

I’m working on an information architecture diagram that I think speaks to the best way to build a hybrid model without sacrificing the farm and without sacrificing flexibility. I hope it resonates well. More to come in that area soon.

In reality MS is waiting for SPC to tell us their plans. Hold your breath. The bigger on premise roadmap is coming and so is more Yammer integration roadmap news. There’s a reason that Microsoft has been pushing yammer adoption. It’s a big investment not just from a dollar amount. It’s big. More news to come…