Having commented on a question that was posed from a SharePoint Users Group inquiring about the future of SharePoint, l was naturally curious as this happens to be my current main area of expertise.

Much like the famous movie line in Taxi delivered by Robert DeNiro, the truth is it did feel like they were talking to me. As I’m sure many others out there are questioning the same thing, the truly safe answer would be, it depends!

From a corporate view you might start by knowing what is the current investment and the ROI. Is this even being measured and if so, how?

What I have learned is that the platform has a place in business and can be used for incredible out of the box solutions. The question is did you find ways to achieve this? How heavily invested are your users? What are the future alternatives?

IT members are now looking at on-premises versus off-premises, not to mention the possibility of hybrid solutions. Think about the Office 365 offerings that include the SharePoint Online app. Is this a sign of a product in decline?

Our roles using this platform are wide and varied and there are many moving parts that I’ve not laid out. All in all I do see this as I valued product, but the key is to find core people to help implement when feasible.

Moving forward, I will be keeping my ear to the ground and interested in participating in its ongoing future in the new year.