You might think you have already heard enough about SharePoint and ECM. There certainly has been plenty of noise, posturing, random punditry and commensurate confusion.

From the Microsoft side of the story, SharePoint can do everything from boiling an egg to launching a manned mission to Mars. From the ECM industry "traditionalist" corner we hear how "weak" it is for just about any purpose, let alone for ECM. In the midst of this, the undeniable truth remains: SharePoint is everywhere, and it impacts everything ECM.

Executive Summary

You might think you have already heard enough about SharePoint and ECM. There certainly has been plenty of noise, posturing, random punditry and commensurate confusion.

From the Microsoft side of the story, SharePoint can do everything from boiling an egg to launching a manned mission to Mars. From the ECM industry "traditionalist" corner we hear how "weak" it is for just about any purpose, let alone for ECM. In the midst of this, the undeniable truth remains: SharePoint is everywhere, and it impacts everything ECM.

From the Microsoft side of the story, SharePoint can do everything from boiling an egg to launching a manned mission to Mars. From the ECM industry "traditionalist" camp we hear how "weak" it is for just about any purpose, let alone for ECM. In the midst of this, the undeniable truth remains: SharePoint is everywhere, and it impacts everything ECM and most don't really know what it is and does.

For users questions abound:

Can I really replace Documentum/FileNet/Hyland etc. with SharePoint?
What does SharePoint do "out of the box"?
How should I incorporate SharePoint into my ECM solution plans?
... and hundreds more.

We have tried, and I believe succeeded, in coming up with a definitive framework that can be used to answer these and other related questions that is both inline with what we believe is the Microsoft product direction, as well as the truths we hold self evident in the ECM universe.