Day 28 - Microsoft and the SharePoint Team

1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge

Today I went to meet the SharePoint Product Team at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge across the river from the City. I arrived early not knowing the area and to make sure I was there on time, 45 min ahead of time I think I covered that aspect. The day started off with a nice bright sunshine, so while I waiting I stepped over the road to take some photos of the city over the river.

Boston the River

As the time got closer I returned to the building to get a drink and wait for Richard Sgro who is one of the product managers associated with the SharePoint Team. Upon meeting Richard he gave me a guided tour of the Microsoft sections of the building. They had a number of floor of the building and a large presentation area. Lots of work spaces and well as plenty of recreational spaces. Initially I spoke of what I was hoping to do while on my research trip and some of the things that I was interested in understanding about the next version of SharePoint. Much of the information I received was under NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) but suffice it to say the high level of discussions about the product and the direction it is taking was very interesting and pleasing. 


I raised issues that the experience of SharePoint when it got to mobile devices needed to address different aspects of the user experience. What I saw I believe with address this issue and give us plenty of scope to delivery a fair better user experience in the future. Another area was the on boarding off applications and services delivered using SharePoint. This is a major topic for now and in the future and an area that a number of the companies I have spoken to discussed and are addressing.


I spent a bit of time in a round table discussion with the team both in Cambridge and Seattle of the issues and challenges we face in our department. More looking at the User Experience and the type of users we have. People who are not so much computer focused but just needing to do their job and that the technology needed to be as intuitive as possible. 


I major area I discussed was the management and control of information and access rights. Currently SharePoint can manage this in two ways one through AD (Active Directory) the other within SharePoint itself. Which creates a management issue and security concerns. The other is the different security levels within SharePoint and the interpretation of exactly what they all meant. There needed to be a simpler way to manage and control access to information.


The other part was development of applications and how these application could be developed and deployed. It would be great to have the functionality of a self service provision. So people would access and set up up what needed when then needed it. And finally I discussed our work in the area of MySites and the change of working across projects and utilising the MySites ability to display the individuals information that was relevant to them. 


I was given some insights into where and what SharePoint is aiming to achieve and the speed improvements for migration. I was very happy with what I saw and believe that is far more potential come our way with the latest version. We also went over a high level overview of Office and again the direction and what I saw is looking good.


I finished at Microsoft and I heading home. Before I did thought I noticed that the MIT Sloan School  of Management was next door. I went to see if they had a tour but they were engaged in a reunion so I just had to do with the photo.  :)

MIT Sloan School of Management