SharePoint continues to enjoy a thriving ecosystem

October 21, 2009

I just returned from Microsoft’s sold out SharePoint 2009 conference in Las Vegas this week. The conference drew almost 8,000 attendees representing customers, partners, analysts and Venture Capital Firms from around the globe. This is by far one of Microsoft’s largest events of the year and should come as no surprise given the rapid growth of SharePoint. To put this in perspective, Microsoft held its first SharePoint event in May 2006, which drew 1,300 attendees. In 2006, Microsoft claimed that they had 75 million licensed users. Yesterday, Microsoft said SharePoint is defying the company’s slump, growing more than 20 percent, to $1.3 billion, according to Jeff Teper, corporate vice president of SharePoint and hinted that the licensed user base may be as high as 130 million.

As I walked the exhibit hall, I ran into a number of interesting companies to include BA Insight, Syntergy, Colligo, and CLM Matrix. Each are Expansion Stage companies providing compelling solutions for SharePoint, while enjoying its dramatic growth. Microsoft claims that for every $1 of Microsoft product sold, it generates an equivalent $7 in partner services. This has created what many people believe to be Microsoft’s greatest asset and why it is one of the most admired companies in the world. More to come..

Key Account Director

Marc Barry is an experienced sales leader in the Enterprise Technology Industry including Software, Cloud and Consulting. Currently, he is the Key Account Director at <a href="http://www.oracle.com">Oracle</a>. He was previously a Venture Partner at OpenView.