Microsoft needs to get their advertising act together
Microsoft has made some dramatic steps forward when looking at their business solutions. For both the low/mid range as well as the enterprises. Still, its the low/mid range which I'm interested in since that's my category. I can now utilize solutions for a reasonable price which several years ago would have been nearly unreachable for me.
I don't think its the technology anymore. With their 2010 Office suite they have made some tremendous progress, and I'm not talking about the interface but the technical aspects of what you can do with it. Even a computer illiterate can now easily save their document online thus allowing others to access it (without risking to accidentally sharing it with the world).
Yet Microsoft seems incapable of selling their goods. As the author states: "What is Sharepoint, what can you do with it?". Its a very fair question, one which Microsoft usually can only answer with: "Here's our demo version, try it out yourself!" (not with all of their products, but many have a demo available these days) OR they'll bury you with a load of marketing phrases which sound "cool" but are totally meaningless.
Take a look at their Outlook product page; it starts with a link to get video training! "Lesson 1, Master the basics of email". Can you see it? "Oh, if sending an e-mail requires a study of some sort then Outlook definitely isn't for me, too complex" (my opinion a few months ago).
Same applies to SharePoint, as rightfully noticed by the author. Good article IMO!
by the way; who said that El Reg was negative (per definition) towards Microsoft again? ;-)