Future Gazing into a Billion Dollar Industry

17 February 2011

SharePoint developers from around New Zealand will converge in Wellington over two days for the annual New Zealand SharePoint Conference.

Held on March 16 and 17 at the Amora Hotel, the two-day conference has over 40 sessions, jam-packed with top local and international speakers commenting on the impact SharePoint has on organisations and individuals in business.

An exciting new addition is the inaugural Community Challenge – this involves a number of delegates re-designing and building a new SharePoint solution for a not-for-profit organisation. This year’s recipient is Gracelands, a disability support service that provides employment and leisure opportunities to people who have any form of disability. Delegates will be re-designing the online Purchase Order procedure by implementing an online form with associated workflow.

Debbie Ireland, Manager of envisionIT and conference organiser believes adding the community challenge brings a new dimension to the conference.

“The SharePoint Conference is one of the most well respected technology conferences in New Zealand, and we are continually attracting a wealth of talent for the speaking slots. It is exciting to now be able to offer our delegates an opportunity to give back, utilising their skills with the SharePoint product.”

SharePoint allows companies to host intranet based web pages – often used to facilitate collaboration, provide content management features, implement business processes and supply access to essential information.

One attraction at this year’s conference is Joel Oleson, a SharePoint evangelist based in America. Joel has an extensive history with Microsoft and SharePoint and currently works at Quest Software, guiding the strategy of the SharePoint group. His blog, sharepointjoel.com is one of the top IT blogs in the world, consumed by thousands of people every day in over 102 countries.

During his keynote address, Joel will comment on the state of the industry and look to the future, discussing the trends and direction the SharePoint community will take.

“These are exciting times for SharePoint, which has grown not only as a product, but also as a community. Back in 2001 the plan to redesign the intranet as a top-down portal and a bottom-up workspace brought together developers, IT and business in ways that has transformed businesses and the individuals that use it,” says Oleson.

“SharePoint has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry, and is the fastest revenue generating product for Microsoft – and it is still growing! We are now looking to how developers and community members will interact as a grid of networked information centres with directionless information flow, no centre and no geographic boundaries”

For more information and to register your attendance visit the www.sharepointconference.co.nz.

ENDS

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