The amount of content an
organization must manage
is growing at an
incredible rate. The
cost associated with
managing content, not
surprisingly, grows as
the amount of content
increases and regulatory
compliance standards
tighten. Corporations
have ever increasing
requirements to easily
and quickly store,
manage and retrieve
enterprise content to
solve business problems
ranging from customer
satisfaction to disaster
recovery.
Fortunately,
organizations are
discovering that a
solution to these
challenges may already
be on their computers.
That solution is
Microsoft SharePoint,
which according to
Microsoft is software
that enables
collaboration and
improves content
management, business
process implementation,
and access to
information across the
organization.
Sharing work files
through email is a
cumbersome
process. SharePoint
eases collaboration by
allowing files to be
stored in one location
and enabling access by
all team members.
Today’s work occurs
across multiple
locations, whether it is
in different countries,
around the nation, and
across departments.
SharePoint enables teams
and individuals to
connect and collaborate
together, regardless of
where they are located.
By combining the use of
metadata with full-text
search capabilities,
SharePoint enables fast,
accurate location of
relevant documents.
SharePoint can index
text documents located
in other SharePoint
libraries, on
file-servers, on Web
sites, and in other
vendors’ document
management systems.
Since the actual content
is held by the source
system, access will be
limited by the site's
availability and the
individual's rights to
access the information.
In typical Microsoft
fashion, SharePoint has
continued to evolve from
a sturdy but not highly
functional platform to a
very functional platform
that addresses a wide
range of ECM
requirements. Most
impressive, of course,
is the installed base of
SharePoint
licenses--some 17,000
companies have purchased
85 million licenses.
These companies are now
determined to leverage
their investment as much
as they can—for Web
content management, for
document management, and
for ECM. And where there
are ECM requirements
beyond the SharePoint
platform itself,
Microsoft has in place a
long list of partner
solution providers. One
ECM feature that
SharePoint does not have
is in the document
capture area. A
third-party solution
must be used to provide
this feature.
Continued ...
