Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 is not Customizable

The wonderful organization I’m employed with decided Microsoft’s Office Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 was the ideal solution for a flexible, easy to maintain, secure, internal content management system. Oh how wrong they were. Last week I was asked to add a list of known file extensions our Exchange server actively filters and removes from emails. Simple enough, right?

At the top of the site, click Create, then Custom List, provide the name and a short description, click the command button labeled Create. The new list is created, but the necessary columns aren’t, yet. Microsoft is kind enough to create a column labeled Title for you though, how nice of them.

Unfortunately, Microsoft, a column labeled Title isn’t necessary for this particular list, but for some reason, deleting this column isn’t permitted.

The work around involved renaming the column’s default label from Title to What I Wanted, but it’s the principle of the thing. Microsoft charged the organization $3,999, plus $71 for each client access license. With close to twenty-thousand employees (potential clients), that’s nearly 1.5 million dollars, and the word “cannot” exists in the help file. Who in their right mind would purchase anything from a company that charges over a million dollars for a content management system that says “cannot” in the help file? The one I’m employed with. Technology doesn’t involve “can not.” These words are removed from my vocabulary when I’m at work, or working on personal projects, and I suggest you and everyone else in the IT field do the same. Technology involves progression, doing, action, the advancement of our species, whatever you want to call it. These are the people I deal with, and these are the tools I’m forced to use. Welcomed.

Perhaps now’s a good time to stop bitching, get off my ass, and continue working on the business model I have planned.