CIOL:  How do you respond to the analysis that MS SharePoint does not scale well given the way it stores data in SQL Server? By contrast IBM Websphere does not have this problem. How do you plan to do away with this issue?

SM: We have had several successful implementations that scale large enterprise requirements. In fact, a recent report by IDC found that 61 percent of users surveyed said they were deploying SharePoint enterprise-wide. Another 28 percent of those using SharePoint in departments today are expected to expand usage to the enterprise within the next 12 months.

One such company is Patni, where SharePoint is being used by more than 14,000 users. Similarly, in India, we have enterprise –wide users of SharePoint at companies like Wipro, Zensar, M&M, L&T with thousands of users. General Mills went live has migrated 1.5 million documents to MOSS 2007, with 1700 Web sites, almost 6,000 lists containing 1.2 million items, and more than 1.3 million documents.

Another good example is easyJet, Europe’s third-largest airline, who are deploying SharePoint Server 2007 across the enterprise to make sure everyone from the flight crew to baggage handlers work together in real time to ensure that 470 daily flights remained on schedule.

CIOL: The social networking tools for Share Point, analysts, opine are less advanced and quite uninspiring, when compared to social networking tools in enterprise today. How do you respond to that judgment?

SM: SharePoint Server 2007, along with Microsoft UC and Microsoft Office provides a broad set of collaboration capabilities with several social networking features like people search, Mysites (personal web), blogs, wikis, extensible people profiles, RSS support, and discussion boards. 

This is further enhanced by Microsoft UC’s real-time communication capabilities that integrate seamlessly with SharePoint.  Instead of providing point social computing tools, SharePoint Server 2007 delivers a social computing platform, which can be extended.

Developers can further enhance these capabilities via XML Web Services, AJAX, collaborative workspaces and the Common Web Application Framework. Some of our notable customers using SharePoint for Social Networking include Viacom, Accenture, Ford, Bank of America, Pfizer, among others. Social networking capabilities will continue to be an area of significant focus and R&D for the next version. 

CIOL: Is MS planning to tie up or partner or acquire any other big social networking players to improve its social networking bouquet. If yes, by when. And if so, wouldn’t there be a clash of features. How do you envisage smooth integration of features and applications?

Microsoft is deeply committed to social networking and has a strong roadmap of technologies in this area. Our strategy is to continue to provide a robust platform for Social Networking through SharePoint and other technologies, while our partners extend these capabilities to meet some of the advanced requirements that our customers may have. We are also committed to providing an open source solutions to Social Networking through Codeplex.