With interest, I have been reading the different reactions on Mike's article 'Five Things Wrong with SharePoint'. I am not really going to comment the different views expressed by Mike. Many bloggers already have done it in an excellent way. However, being one of the lucky few ones that have been totally absorbed into the new SharePoint v3 stuff and the preparation of the forthcoming TAP program in Redmond a couple of weeks ago, I can 100% say that Microsoft really cares a lot about the community. During these four days I really experienced that we as community guys - the 'field' guys - are very important as input for the product team and all the people around it. Actually, I am convinced that one cannot live without the other. The fact that Fitz took the effort of spending three extra days in Belgium (no no.. not only for the Belgium beer or the good restaurants :-) ) also proves that there is a big commitment from the Redmond guys to keep close relationships with everybody doing great work in the SharePoint community. And no, it is not only about the Belgium guys, I guess if Fitz would have the time and energy, he would visit everyone of you.
Oh yes, both WSS and SPS are no perfect tools today and they certainly need lots of improvements, but they show great promise! And do believe me, we will get these improvements and lots more (too much for most of us I think!) next year. For all of you who feel negative about WSS and SPS, 2006 will be the year of the revenge of SharePoint. Actually, I think we will be able to convert a lot of traditional ASP.NET developers to become SharePoint developers.