Microsoft's Turner Calls SharePoint Facebook for the Enterprise

We've talked about the social features of SharePoint before, even drawing a parallel between modern social media outlets and this professional medium. However, according to Kevin Turner (Microsoft's COO), the comparison extends beyond that: SharePoint is a core, fast-growing, and versatile medium, and one that parallels Facebook in growth, spread, and potential.

Turner pointed to SharePoint as Microsoft's product that hit the $1 billion mark in revenue most quickly. While SharePoint 2010 was the most successful version yet, the next generation is also looking bright: 5 million seats have already been claimed for Office 365. The tremendous success of SharePoint make it the core of Microsoft's business services, a division of the company that makes up 32% of the company's total structure. That puts it ahead of any other division; Windows only has 27%, while servers and related tools hold 24%.

Further, it's not just Microsoft who's getting a lot of its attention from businesses – though, yes, 82% of SharePoint's users are business users. The number of SharePoint users is increasing dramatically, with 20,000 new users each day. Additionally, more than three quarters of all Fortune 500 companies use SharePoint. In other words, in just the same way that Facebook dominates social or Google (sorry Bing) dominates search, Microsoft is the go-to service for enterprise content management.