By David Roe – It is always hard to gauge who is using SharePoint, what they are using it for and what version they are using. Anything that is known about usage patterns, comes from third-party surveys as Microsoft has never been very forthcoming with information like that. However, what has been confirmed over the years from studies like the joint, Sharegate, Hyperfish and Nintex of 2018 that showed that even at that stage there was a huge increase in the number enterprises that were moving to the online version through Office 365. It also showed that, like previous years and other studies that SharePoint 2010 was one of the most successful editions that Microsoft ever released.

2010 was introduced to users in May 2010 and was widely popular with such features as with the addition of PowerShell support, Office Ribbon and Sandbox solutions. The Office Ribbon was launched with Office Suite 2007. However, this month, Mark Kashman, senior product manager on the Microsoft SharePoint team, in a blog post confirmed that the countdown to the discontinuation of support has now begun and SharePoint 2010 will reach end-of-life (EOL) in October 2020. This means that there will be no more upgrades, no more security patches and 2010 will become less and less reliable posing a risk to any enterprise that continues to us it.

Microsoft, as any enterprise that uses its products will know, has been urging enterprises to move online to Office 365 for all kinds of things, SharePoint included. So, in the fact of the upcoming EOL of SharePoint, what should enterprises do? Hunter Willis is product marketing manager at Jersey City-based AvePoint dealing with SharePoint 2010. He pointed out that every organization facing SharePoint 2010 EOL will be making a choice with consequences whether they act or not. Read On: