My dad always used to say that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Since I hate cats that resonated nicely with me. Regardless of how I feel about felines however, it is one of those truisms that applies almost universally to meeting IT needs and requirements.
Present a problem to one IT analyst, programmer, or project manager and you’ll get one solution. Present the same problem to another analyst and you’re going to get something different, which may or may not satisfy the requirements better than the first solution.
I’ve paid a fair amount of attention recently to Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010. Microsoft would love for us to believe that the software is so completely superior to Google’s Apps offerings that businesses would be foolish to adopt Apps over a Microsoft-centric solution. Those of us who have been critical of Microsoft for a long time, of course, aren’t used to the company creating really compelling desktop offerings. Sure, they had what seemed like unbeatable market share, but Windows Vista? Really? Office 2007 was excellent, but didn’t add so much value that many organizations felt like an upgrade from 2003 was a must-have.
Now, though, Windows 7, Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 (and, to some extent, Server 2008) really do provide reasons to upgrade or potentially adopt/grow a Microsoft ecosystem. An organization could create powerful collaborative workflows around these products right out of the box and for those wishing to invest in development, the sky is the limit for the ways in which they can leverage the platform.
