Embracing the Cloud and Microsoft SharePoint as a Service at SPTechCon Boston 2012
I had a great time attending SPTechCon 2012 in Boston, MA. It’s one thing to read the hype, but to see the energized crowd at the event in person was absolutely inspiring. SPTechCon is a fantastic event that brings SharePoint speakers from all around the world to share their expertise and innovations. It’s always fun to attend these events, not only for the opportunity to have great conversations with new people and catch up with old friends, but it gives everyone in the SharePoint community a chance to talk about best practices and share those hard lessons learned.
I had the chance to give a Lightning Talk on the evolution of the cloud. With Microsoft’s compelling Office 365 and Windows Azure technologies poised to forever change the face of SharePoint, it was my job to help attendees understand how the cloud benefits in areas such as self-service enhancement, pooled resources, and extensibility within a matter of minutes.
Key Takeaways:
1- It is quite easy to become lost in all the hype about the cloud. The promise of massive ROI, the ability to refocus IT to become a business tool rather than one that just keeps the lights on, and, of course, virtually infinite scalability. I wanted to go beyond the cold prospect of rapidly provisioning Virtual Machines (VMs). What does that mean for my organization? How can I apply these fantastic capabilities of the cloud to achieve success? For those of you who missed the SPTechCon presentation, keep an eye on AvePoint’s YouTube channel for a video. I’ll be going into further detail about the use cases presented in the discussion in a future post coming very soon.
2- After my session, it became clear that many people were thinking about the cloud but the question wasn’t, “Why should I be going there?” It was, in fact, “How do I get my business there?” or “Which part of my organization should go first?” I smiled and greeted the attendees with confidence that AvePoint is ready to have that conversation with them and take those first steps into the cloud with any organization. If you’d like to know more about how AvePoint can be your avenue to embracing the cloud, please visit our solutions page.
3- The community is just as psyched about 2013 as Microsoft, and is welcoming it with open arms. At the Lightning Talks, many presenters were speaking on a range of topics from looking forward to SharePoint 2013 to still innovating on the capable SharePoint 2010 platform by intertwining other Microsoft technologies and their own innovation into one seamless ecosystem. Watching the folks from Nothing but Branding take such a simple concept like the SharePoint graphical user interface (GUI) and transform it reminded me there is so much more untapped potential in the platform and got the gears turning for more innovation at AvePoint.
4- It was a madhouse after AvePoint Chief Architect Jeremy Thake and Vice President of Product Marketing Mary Leigh Mackie delivered their stellar keynote about SharePoint as a service. People are starting to get serious about SharePoint governance and swarmed the AvePoint booth with questions on how they can start leveraging DocAve Governance Automation. We were there ready to answer everything and demo the product live on the show floor. Be sure to stop by AvePoint’s booth at an upcoming event to get a peek for yourself.
SPTechCon was an awesome event, and it was a great opportunity to speak about one of my areas of passion at AvePoint. Were you able to come out to Boston and would like to share feedback on the event? Be sure to drop a comment here, or reach out to me on Twitter.
Shyam brings over 15 years of expertise in product management, marketing, delivery, and support, with a strong emphasis on data resilience, security, and business continuity. Throughout his career, Shyam has undertaken diverse roles, from teaching video game design to modernizing legacy enterprise software and business models by fully leveraging SaaS technology and Agile methodologies. He holds a B.A. in Information Systems from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.