Microsoft and the ECM market

Larry Borasato suggests that anyone with a web server and Microsoft SharePoint can do content management, or at least they think they can.

The truth is, most companies have found out that they can do ECM on a shoestring. Of course they won't realize the mistake they've made until they actually need to get the information back. Then it will suddenly become clear that they spent too much time on the capture, manage, store, and preserve part, and not near enough on the find and retrieve part.

Tony Byrne takes a similar view.

Together with forthcoming Office 12 enhancements and continued wide adoption of SharePoint, Microsoft could finally become a fairly robust ECM player. Except that...

1. It can take years for new Microsoft technologies to be adopted and refined by the company's all-important reseller channel;
2. Microsoft sometimes misjudges the marketplace and their customers (c.f. lackluster Web CMS product);
3. The company does not have a great record with 1.0 releases.