PLM & SharePoint 2007

Microsoft is positioning SharePoint 2007 as a development platform (just like various flavors of Windows OS are development platforms) for (abstract) document management systems. (Out –of-the-box it is no Documentum though!)

This is a PLM tool and MS is thinking of it that way as well.

It has most of the ingredients that a more mature tool-kit such as TeamCenter Enterprise has and is equally complex to customize, and configure. It has

• Difficult to program, test, debug, and validate state-chart workflows as opposed to straight-through workflows.
• Workflow engine & supporting .Net classes (3.0). This workflow is going to replace the MS BizTalk Server 2006’s workflow model.
• Extensible Data Model (requires SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2005 Express)
• Extensible object model tied to both .Net 3.0 Framework and its own data model
• “Design once, Deploy Anywhere” form development for both Web Forms & Windows Forms (through InfoPath). By this I mean that you can design the form using InfoPath and deploy that form either as a Web Form (HTML) or a Rich Client Form (Windows Client application) .
• It is the Information Rights Management part of SharePoint that controls the permissions of fields within a Form (a view of an abstract document in the MVC parlance)
• Security and Access is either through ActiveDirectory or through LDAP (this must be programmed.)

What it does not have is a rules engine that TCE does have out-of-the-box, a more extensive data model, and more integration among its various pieces. On the other hand, its installation is a breeze compared to TCE!

Since MS practice has been to respect its customers and give them the ability to keep their data intact (the famous backwards compatibility of MS products) there is less chance of MS taking its customers’ data hostage in order to keep them here. Something that I cannot vouch for many other PLM vendors!

I think it will be a good idea for some one to develop a PLM Reference Implementation of SharePoint 2007 using the SharePoint Server 2007 SDK: Software Development Kit and Enterprise Content Management Starter Kit which may be found @

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D94E307-67D9-41AC-B2D6-0074D6286FA9&displaylang=en

The reason I so think is that there has been a lot of unhappiness with the current PLM vendors for reasons of high initial cost, high cost of migrating one's data from one vendor's tool to another (vendor lock-in), high-cost of customization ("make it hard to customize so I can get all those consulting dollars") etc.

SharePoint 2007 now has a sort of a WebLog and Wiki but they are not features that are germane to it – they have been added because customers asked for them. Having a built-in Wiki for an abstract document management system does make sense – it is the place to collaborate and discuss issues outside of the workflow’s rigid rules.

However, to me, a WebLog makes no sense for this product as it is positioned now. And even for a Wiki, I would not got to SharePoint – I do not need all that machinery for a light-weight service such as a Wiki.