While Microsoft unveiled some new features in SharePoint 2010, new users might not find them compelling enough to jump on board now. Many of its collaboration features and Enterprise 2.0 tools have been in the market for years and, according to a recent Forrester Research report, the feature set may be overkill for midmarket IT organizations with basic needs.

The report goes on to say that current users will most likely be pleased with the updates because SharePoint 2010 fills in some of the gaps left in the 2007 version — such as improved social networking tools and better integration with business applications.

New users should consider SharePoint 2010 a major strategic move, however, and evaluate their needs before implementing the system, the report says. Those looking to add a single workload, such as social networking tools, may find a better match in a point solution.

My first thought: What?! This complex, expensive, difficult-to-manage-and-maintain system may be overkill for some organizations? Shocking.

My second thought: Yes, SharePoint has evolved — but so has the rest of the world. Organizations that wanted social networking and Enterprise 2.0 tools were not waiting around for Microsoft to do something about it — they were looking into Web-based applications from other vendors long before Microsoft got into the game.

Social computing got the attention of the enterprise in recent years. Young, startup vendors offering Web-based Enterprise 2.0 applications, for example, quickly filled in where the larger, more established vendors (such as Microsoft) left off.

Take Socialtext: It started in 2002 as a wiki provider, is now a well-known company in the Enterprise 2.0 tools market and recently announced record quarter-over-quarter bookings growth in 2009. Jive Software also announced growth in 2009, and was placed in the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner, Inc.’s 2009 “Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace” Report.

So, if you’ve survived this long without SharePoint, is there any reason to start now? With less expensive alternatives already on the market, why wait for the Microsofts and the IBMs to catch up?

At least according to Forrester Research, which defines BPM as designing, executing and optimizing cross-functional business activities that incorporate people, application systems and even business partners.

An example from Forrester analyst Ken Vollmer: automating a manual mortgage application processing process, incorporating steps like having the loan specialist check a credit report. “Or you could even have the client go in through a website to trigger a BPM process that automatically goes and captures all the related information in 10 minutes, versus three weeks,” Vollmer says.

Now that all sounds great – but in the midmarket, companies are taking a more departmental or niche approach. It’s what Janelle Hill, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner, calls workflow coordination as opposed to true BPM meant to redesign and transform business processes.

And in any case, midsized organizations aren’t turning to enterprise BPM, content management or repository technologies to do this work – tools like Documentum and FileNet, Lombardi Software and Savvion, webMethods and Oracle (each set aligned, respectively, with what Forrester calls document-centric, human-centric or process optimization BPM).

Instead, midmarket companies are relying mainly on Microsoft SharePoint to handle departmental and manual workflow processes such as approval processes for purchasing or travel, Hill says.

Vollmer agrees; he says Microsoft technologies were listed as one of the top choices for BPM by 164 architects surveyed last year. Now since Microsoft does not have a BPM package, the assumption is they are using SharePoint and BizTalk, Vollmer says.

On paper, Microsoft SharePoint, Windows Workflow services, InfoPath and BizTalk Server are appealing to the midmarket, but SharePoint was not built for BPM purposes. “People using SharePoint have to build a lot of the logic themselves, whereas a BPM tool has logic prebuilt,” Vollmer says.

Midmarket organizations may cite cost cutting and lack of skills and IT resources as the reason for not looking beyond Microsoft, but that’s not all. “Many [midmarket companies] are Microsoft-centric, and they follow and wait for Microsoft to do everything, whether it is new business applications or SharePoint,” Hill says. “The more they can consolidate and leverage Microsoft technology investments, the easier their lives become.”

In comparison with the features and functionality of, say, Documentum or FileNet, SharePoint is weak, Hill says. “There’s very much a mentality amongst midmarket companies that [SharePoint] is good enough; we don’t have to push the envelope or take a big risk and be the first to try things.”

Cost savings and cost cutting continue to be the No. 1 and No. 2 concerns for CIOs, so it’s no surprise given the economy that Microsoft technology, which is easily 20% to 30% less expensive than Java equivalents in the area of BPM and content management, wins out with midmarket organizations, she says.

Are you in that group of companies sticking with Microsoft for business process management? Do you have advice for peers for its usage, or regarding BPM in general? Is BPM a strategy that’s top of mind at your company this year, and do you agree with the analysts’ definition?