New SharePoint Interoperability Solution Architecture (SISA) Standards Group

By Barb Mosher | Published Oct 21, 2009

New SharePoint Interoperability Solution Architecture (SISA) Standards Group An interesting piece of news coming out of the SharePoint Conference was the introduction of a new standards group specifically for SharePoint (news, site).

No this isn't coming from Microsoft, but rather from a group of Microsoft partners including founding members Danny Boulanger - Alcero, Susan Yee - Active Data Exchange, Larry D. Hunt - Integrated Digital Systems/ScanAmerica Inc., Tony Lanni - Avepoint, Esa Tervo - Neoxen Systems, and Mike Fitzmaurice - Nintex.

Called the SharePoint Interoperability Solution Architecture (SISA) Standards Group, the organization wants to create a software standard for developing SharePoint applications. The purpose? To simplify the integration and interoperability of solutions built for SharePoint by ISVs.

Products designated as being SISA™ compliant will have the ability to exchange information, processes, and tasks between two or more different SharePoint systems or components on a standard platform.

Other participating members include Bamboo Solutions, MetaVis Technologies, Atalasoft and Mark Logic.

We asked Tom Rizzo, Senior Director of Product Management for SharePoint if Microsoft was involved with this new standards organization. Rizzo told us that they had heard of it, but have not had deep discussions with the group as of yet. He did say that Microsoft is very supportive of community based initiatives, and that they passionately listen to customers and partners.

There's not much information on the SISA website yet (which by the way is a SharePoint based website), but we'll keep an eye on this standards group to see if it's able to take hold and make advances in the greater SharePoint partner community.