SharePoint has really captured the market and for good reason. It's a great platform! We use it for document management, website development, and as a component of robust software solutions.
Unfortunately as with many hot technologies, it is accompanied by the sudden appearance of huge numbers of SharePoint experts. Similar to the tsunami of HTML Programmers (as a brief digression--HTML is a word processing language...programmers in that context has always been a bit of a stretch) that arrived with the rapid demand for websites more than a decade ago, SharePoint Programmers are climbing out of the woodwork.
And that's my point. There's a huge difference between programmers that use SharePoint and SharePoint Programmers. Real programmers will integrate SharePoint into software solutions to build durable applications that will evolve, providing opportunities for migration to new versions of SharePoint or transition to yet-to-be-introduced tools that could replace SharePoint. SharePoint Programmers will deliver software that works on the current version with little hope future viability.
Remember software is expensive to build. Tools like SharePoint do make it less expensive, but if these tools are not leveraged properly cost of maintaining the software will quickly eclipse the build cost.
Rick Huebner is President & CEO of VISTECH.com, a technology company based in Hartford, CT. VISTECH.com is an ISV that develops custom software using Microsoft technologies.
