Sharepoint makes in roads into Pharma

I just read an interesting blog entry on Brilliant Leap website:

http://brilliantleap.com/blog/2007/06/a_different_sort_of_release.html

It states that Microsoft has made a customized Sharepoint solution that is targeted at Pharma.  This news in itself doesnt merit any discussions, but the interesting point of the article was that FCG partnered with Microsoft to create this solution, which happens to be called FirstPoint .  FCG has been a long-time partner of EMC Documentum. 

• Does EMC Documentum see this as a threat to its core customers – pharma? 
• By partnering with Microsoft, does FCG lose some of its standing with EMC Documentum? 
• What does this mean with respect to the current Sharepoint integration products with Documentum – will the integration become stronger or will Documentum focus its $$$ in developing a competing product?

Its been a long time since I interacted with pharma companies to know the true impact of this.  I would like hear from people who deal with pharma on daily basis.

eRoom vs Sharepoint

Since I am not an eRoom expert, I did not really elaborate much on the differences between eRoom and Sharepoint as part of my Documentum vs Sharepoint postings.  The following is list of differences provided by a commentor, which I deem very insightful:

1. One of the biggest issues that SharePoint has is administration.  I’ve had companies come to us and tell me that they are spending 10 hours a day keeping SharePoint up and running.  When you look at eRoom and have customers who have installed it a year ago and don’t have to log into the server again in that period of time, that says alot.  Look at eRoom, launched about a decade ago, is already at version 7.3.  It’s stable, proven, reliable.  When reviewed side by side, it blows away SharePoint.
2. Some additional key points for eRoom is the ease of extending and building the eRooms by nontechnical business users.  A manager can build her own tracking system for just about anything, such as correspondence, without IT involvement. Try doing that with SharePoint.
3. Inboxes also don’t exist with SharePoint.  But with eRoom, you can add an “inbox” to a room and then start emailing that project, program or business process as you would any member ofthe team.  Then, all the related emails to the proejct are in your eRoom, within the context of what you are working on.  Stored alongside files, structured and unstructured data.
4. In SharePoint, you cannot “nest” containers.  In eRoom, we can have a folder inside the room.  A calendar inside the folder.  An event inside the calendar.  Another folder inside the event.  A database inside the folder.  A file attached to a database row inside the database.  eRoom will truly go where you need it to go.
5. Finally, there’s the customization side of things.  If you can dream it, we can do it as an extension/add-on to eRoom.  The API is rich, stable and reliable.  As I said, we’re at version 7.3.  We’ve built add-ons for numerous purposes including a custom command that will convert the contents of a database row into a fillable PDF form template and uploaded to the attachment area of the database row.  We’ve built custom single sign on.  We’ve built “relational” databases within eRoom.  The point is that it can be extended and customized easily, within the scope that eRoom initially intended, without sacrificing stability of the core product.

I would like to thank Eric Crone from eRoomExperts for contributing his thoughts on how eRoom stands up against Sharepoint.