SharePoint: Big Conference, Big Competition

When it comes to SharePoint, there’s no middle ground: Folks are either profiting from the Microsoft platform, or competing fiercely with it. Microsoft sells at least $1 billion worth of SharePoint annually. And on Feb. 10, SharePoint customers and partners are going to converge on San Francisco for a major SharePoint conference. Here’s what to expect.

The SharePoint Technology Conference — which tends to refer to itself in the unfortunate shorthand of “SPTechCon” — will offer several workshops focusing on SharePoint 2003 and 2007 (the current version). But the spotlight is clearly on SharePoint 2010, which launches this year, and there are more than a few classes with names like “Rearchitecting Your SharePoint 2007 Farm into a SharePoint 2010 Farm.“

The keynote will be delivered by Tom Rizzo, senior director of Microsoft’s SharePoint team, and the list of other speakers reads like a who’s who of SharePoint developers, resellers, providers, and writers.

It’s true that the lineup (and the expected attendance, if the sheer volume of workshops they’re holding is any indication) looks to be impressive. But I’m wondering how many attendees are going to be discussing the growing ranks of SharePoint competitors like Alfresco, HyperOffice, Box.net, or even Google Apps. Even as SharePoint sales grow, are competitors gaining ground and potentially growing even faster in certain areas?

We hope to provide more perspectives next week as the conference unfolds.