SharePoint Skills Shortfall
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably noticed that Microsoft
SharePoint is
on
a serious roll. With Windows SharePoint Server (WSS) and Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, Microsoft has cooked up a one-two portal punch
that has surprised even longtime industry watchers.
SharePoint, it seems, is everywhere. And that's creating a huge opportunity
for development shops to begin rolling out some exciting new applications and
services against the platform.
There's just one problem: There's not nearly enough experienced, SharePoint
development talent to go around.
Vincent Rothwell, a London-based consultant and principal of SPWorks, put it
bluntly. "Every single person I talk to wants to employ SharePoint developers
and nobody can find them," he said. "A lot of people don't necessarily
want to train people up, though they will."
Rothwell said ASP.NET developers, with their background in Web application
programming, are typically best suited for the transition into SharePoint work.
But he said that gets you only so far.
Chris Wasser, solution architect at consultancy Competitive Computing in Colchester,
Vt., agreed.
"People with that experience are in the best position to develop on top
of SharePoint. But it's different, that's the bottom line. People need to adjust
to that change to be able to develop on SharePoint. Our experience with newer
folks is it's a challenge," Wasser said.
"In a lot of ways," he continued, "the product got out ahead
of [Microsoft's] developers, which is not really a good situation, in my opinion.
They weren't prepared for what was going to happen when they released it, really."
The good news, Wasser said, is that Microsoft is starting to catch up with
itself. "Now there's more information out there," he said. "I
think Microsoft is taking steps in the right direction. They just launched a
site that is specifically focused on SharePoint development." Check it
out for yourself here.
Is your shop struggling to find competent SharePoint developers? Let me know
how you're working around the skills shortfall at [email protected].
Posted by Michael Desmond on 06/17/2008