<p>What is Sharepoint? This may seem like a simple question but when simple questions like this crop up in the Cloud Pro search queries, then there obviously people asking it.</p><p>Having said that, my first reaction is to say "two years in and people are still asking questions like this?" This, of course, the wrong reaction. The facts are very simple: businesses like the idea of Sharepoint, as it is presented by proponents both inside (SQL guys love it) and outside (so do cloud SaaS salesmen), and cloud technologies for SQL-based repositories are a hot technical topic too.</p><p>However, the reason why so many people are searching for enlightenment on Sharepoint is not for the same reason why people search for information on a hot new software release, or a sparkly new architecture. No, it's much more a case of harassed IT people looking for explanations as to why Sharepoint appears to be so difficult to do properly.</p><p>To explain why this is, I need to answer that simple question in simple terms. Sharepoint is a repository for information that might have lived previously in Word documents, and which needs to be presented via a web browser in a sortable, searchable way. It is weaker on pure number-crunching, and stronger on abstract types of data (I am thinking here of pictures, basically, or even audio) than a traditional SQL database built from the bottom up by traditional means, and it provides a more self-service user-centric experience.</p><p><a href="http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/saas/5415/what-sharepoint-and-why-its-thorny-question">Keep reading...</a></p>