Today was the fourth and final day for the exceptional 2009 SharePoint Conference.  Today was a deviation from the norm, in that we did not spend the day in the typical SharePoint 2010 sessions.  We actually spent the day with the Microsoft Partner Team, attending back-to-back sessions learning how we, as partners, can leverage the SharePoint 2010 platform to create even more value for our clients. 

Anyone that knows me knows that our clients are more than just “customers.”  I firmly believe in aligning with our clients, understanding their business, understanding what pains they are feeling, and creating long-lasting, trust-based relationships with them – they are my friends.  So, when I have the opportunity to learn ways that we can add even more value than we already do, I am definitely on-board.

Today we learned how to prepare our team for the new release, and build the skills that are going to help our clients get the most from the new platform that is SharePoint 2010.  We also learned about new certifications and specializations for 2010 and also how to begin better aligning our business with the new SharePoint 2010 functional areas.

As I’ve stated in my other posts, we consistently refer to SharePoint as a platform, and today, the Microsoft Partner Team confirmed that.  This is one of their strategies going forward with the product, and we are very fortunate to have a background in deep integration platform development, before SharePoint even came to market.  I feel this is an area where we can provide a tremendous amount of value for our clients, since our team has a strong background in building solutions that are much more than ‘out-of-the-box,’ and now the Partner Team is reassuring us that this is a large component in the future of SharePoint.

Overall, I want to thank Microsoft for the opportunity to attend these sessions.  I know that they had many discussions internally regarding even having the sessions and taking the attendees away from the conference content, but I’m glad I didn’t miss it.  It was a great end to a great conference, knowing that our expertise and background is directly in alignment with the direction in which Microsoft wants to take SharePoint.  I can speak for our entire team when I say we are all excited about the future of StreamLogic and SharePoint!