Sharevolution is world’s first appstore for SharePoint and you can yourself experience it at www.sharevolutionhq.com
Sharevolution is a whole new business for SharePoint developers, Partners and above all a Huge Value for SharePoint Users. SharePoint has seen a strong momentum in last decade of its existence. More than 78% of Fortune 500 Corporations are using SharePoint for their Enterprise Content Management needs, to enable collaboration in the geographically diversified teams and above all enabling themselves with platform for able to define, design and deploy business applications.
SharePoint 2010 is definitely a robust platform and it has already started proving its worth as it has opened up plethora of opportunities for all developers, partners and customers. SharePoint customers have started engaging developers and partners to do more with SharePoint by taking it out from Firewall-boundary to Internet facing sites. Internet facing public portals which seemed to be controlled experiments in the era of MOSS is now a bold positive Statement with SharePoint 2010. The ease with which the portals can be configured, deployed and managed is remarkable achievement from a Product which is both Solution and Platform. SharePoint has already proved its mettle in the On-Premise Enterprise space and it is time for it to move to another emerging market – a market which has enormous potential and competitors have already started operating on with various offerings.
Office, the biggest brand which Microsoft has ever created is launching its Cloud Avatar – Office 365 and SharePoint too is a part of it. Microsoft need to succeed in this space and for that there is a need to replicate the on-premise success story into the cloud. Microsoft has succeeded on its strong Partner Channel and Developers. Partners again as SI’s and ISV’s has helped carried Microsoft baton forward and there is a need for many more such new partners to pitch in. The eco-system on which Microsoft has built over the years won’t work now as there is a need to build a new eco-system pillared on Microsoft’s strength of Partners and Developers.
To engage larger audiences, there is a need to foster new fructifying relationships. Therefore, there is a need for a new eco-system as showcased below:
Sharevolution will act as required catalysts for this new ecosystem. For a moment, if we just look inward we would realize that what a big opportunity could be a SharePoint on Cloud for Micro-ISV’s and ISV’s alike. This micro-ISV could be an individual SharePoint developer who is filled with energy, ideas and enthusiasm and who could just collaborate to make SharePoint better. SharePoint has seen various flavours in last decade and SI’s have utilized this as a platform to build on real time business solutions on the likes of Intranet, Knowledge Management System, Idea Management, numerous small toolkits and utilities which help improve the productivity of organizations.
Given this new market, will see a many more colours of Rainbow and product would mature at next level. This micro-ISV is the relation which would let take SharePoint and therefore Office-365 that extra mile.
Sharevolution is that piece of entire ecosystem which would let customers, Micro-ISV’s and partners FIND right solutions from the store and let Developers PUBLISH these solutions at the same time. SharePoint always had been a pain when it comes to INSTALL and following Installation document has always been tricky. An average user almost struggles every time when he wants to install this in his environment. I remember, following wssdemo.com every time to test and play with Fab-40 templates which Microsoft released as a part of 2007 release of its SharePoint version. Sharevolution has been built to translate 1-Click Install for SharePoint Online and Premise and therefore allow Business Users to test the Solution readiness for their Business. Now, having seen the benefit of ONE PLACE where all the Solutions and Applications are available; monetizing the effort is the Key. Sharevolution will allow earning 70% of solutions costs per install to individuals and registered Micro-ISV’s.
Though, AppStore with Millions of registered developers seems to be a Perfect Ambitious Plan but utilizing the “Community Concierges” worldwide will be the key. White Label Store for Leading SharePoint providers can give Licence + Revenue sharing model and help reach out to “their” customers with set of value add – solutions developed and built for few specific contexts.
If looked at Pragmatically, this really looks like a Long Shot – but the good part is it helps see the Light at the end of tunnel; the business model will evolve, it may change based on the need but given the fact that there are absolutely nobody with this offering today makes it just a viable shot. It would be great, if Microsoft too adds to the cause and helps us bootstrap the solutions and help reach out to developers at the same time. We are, however, committed to our innovation to Sharevolution making it better every day.
We Love SharePoint and We just want to make it Better!!!
P.S. : Please comment and I will be posting the possible issues/challenges and risks which we should look at in the next post.