Why Is Sharepoint So Broken, Anyway? A History Lesson.

So why is it that nothing in Sharepoint quite works, even when you undo it later, or fix it, or it should be fixed but is not? Simple: there are handshakes missing all over the place. Parts of Sharepoint just do not talk to other parts. This is not part of the planned functionality of the thing, I mean, probably someone at MS really cares about the technology. It does work well in some very small, key ways.

The overall terribleness, though, is an extended part of what we call a Corporate Culture Problem. The problem is that, really, Microsoft is a risk-averse company with a risk-averse history working in an incredibly risk-forward industry, and it has not learned to hedge its bets in any sort of correct fashion. Microsoft has been late to the party while simultaneously refusing the party's best lessons for years now, then trying to make up its homework by copying the substantially better work of its peers.

The reason for this is simple: Microsoft lost all its corporate caché in the late 1990s, just as the first run of the webkids was leaving school. We'd land in the teeth of both the web crash and the recession, later, and in the meantime, although MS attracted Coupland - and therefore Gen X - it lost out on the much larger boom of the baby boomer's kids. It did this by developing a corporate strategy based entirely on disconnected systems and computer security, rather than openness, sharing, and peer review. The much larger generation of Web Kids learn by doing, mostly, because MS made its systems locked and university seemed expensive but the web itself has always been accessible. We are mostly self-taught - and likely to become moreso, as enrolment in CS programs drops.

They jumped too soon, and Sharepoint sucks because it is sharing software manufactured by a company that does not like to share at all, in any way, at any level. You can see this in the DNA of the software: there are errors, frequent ones, caused by what appears to be nothing more than bad team management. Everything is driven from the back end, in ways that once might have been good, but are no longer good, because they are not actually well-organized; organization is a function of sharing. They are dependent on assumptions and libraries that have to do with basic Windows architecture... which stops working the moment you recognize that the internet is an inherently unstable system.

But how can this BE, you ask, you who has paid good money for this system, and trusted the corporation selling it to you?

1. Sharepoint is built on seven separate base technologies, all of them huge, most of them legacy spare parts that have been dolled up like a late-run K-car and re-sold.
2. The dolling of these parts has not been well-managed, due to Sharepoint being, in large part, nothing but a weird profit centre for a long time. 
3. This has long historic roots. Microsoft fucked up at the internet way, way back - back when they were first getting into it - and have been engaged in playing catch-up as the fat kid ever since. 
4. They chased Dreamweaver with Frontpage, which became Sharepoint Designer after a rebranding.
5. Dreamweaver was terrible to begin with.
6. They missed Search and tried stealing Google's results for a while
7. Now they're stealing Apple's store design, and tablet design.
8. This is because Microsoft is a relatively old company, with a long legacy, working in an industry that is moving incredibly quickly. Their history is one of business software and risk-aversion, but they cannot make money without selling a new thing. 
9. Additionally, they are controlled by people who are uncomfortable with risk, presently unsure of  their core business, and worried about shareholder value rather than product quality.
1. This has to do with their age, which has to do with Nuclear War and The Boomers Have All The Money being a thing they were actually threatened with, where our age is still arriving, and is - see also Fiscal Cliff - likely to be more janitorial in its disasters. Cleanup in Aisle Twelve.
10. Their decisions are therefore being driven by marketing, rather than by actual use.
11. Because the company is not, even now, quite sure what the fuck the internet is for.
12. Which means that they are dedicated to selling their products to people who are afraid of the cloud
13. Want something shiny for their cash if they are going to hand it over
14. Who believe in Security
15. But are not able to grasp what in practice that means
16. And they are saddled with the buggiest, most hackable operating system and most difficult consumer-grade software because that used to be how you made money. 
17. No-one is sure how you make money now, but Brushed Aluminum and Shit Doing What It Says On The Packet is working out pretty well for most of them.
18. This scares Microsoft because, having missed out on the web, and utterly lacking any interesting technology except perhaps the xBox, where they continue to haul defeat from the jaws of victory, they are failing. Very, very slowly. You can fail for a long time before your company dies. You can make a lot of money failing, and take a lot of people with you.
19. Welcome to the life cycle of the American corporation, where, as we all know, money for shareholders is more important than people.

Unfortunately, unlike candy [Hershey's] , or beer [AB InBev], both of which are luxuries that can be put aside, the Microsoft problem has a direct consequence on the architecture of business operations in pretty well every English-speaking country. The maintenance of this software is boring, but necessary, as driven as it is by selling rather than making something worth using, and as important as it is to major corporations with a great deal of money running through them.

This is really pretty stupid, all of it, because it is like having two filing cabinet companies, and one of them simply has broken locks on everything. There is no end in sight, but the first filing cabinet company to do it better - thus far, Google - will have a mighty prize. It is already turning up in Android phones, alongside the new malware marketplace.

Unfortunately, twice, is that Google is now publicly traded, and is interested in documenting every last bleeding thing you do. It is very probably not long before this style of problem expands; how should a company be?