There is an ongoing debate in SAGE about the value of SharePoint. For years, the platform has held tremendous promise, but mid-course changes by Microsoft and the complexity of the product has meant its promise has gone largely unfulfilled. Now there is tremendous buzz around the latest version in Sharepoint 2007 (still in beta), where every software vendor seems to be jumping on the bandwagon and praising it as the backbone of their systems. While we have always been cautious about SharePoint in the past because of Microsoft's continuing fiddling with the source code and deficiencies in the feature set, the new version has won some champions inside SAGE. They point to its ability to connect disparate information sources and content management features. Others, however, still feel its complexity and lack of a clear business problem that it solves means that it will still sit unused in legal IT departments.

Where do you stand on SharePoint? Do you see SharePoint 2007 solving real problems you have in IT or is it just more hype? Let us know in the comments.