Is SharePoint 2010 Relevant? I believe so!

On his endusersharepoint.com website, Mark Miller asks if discussion about SharePoint 2010 is relevant yet. He says that after much discussion with users, that SharePoint 2010 uptake won't really happen for about another two years.
I agree in large part with this assessment, but won't overlook that there are plenty of people out there champing at the bit for the general release of 2010.
From my own discussions at SharePoint Saturdays, other events and with attendees to SPTechCon (the SharePoint technology conference for which I am responsible for selecting classes), it is clear that many people are going to be staying right where they are on MOSS 2007.
The move from 2003 from 2007 brought much new functionality, and really made SharePoint an enterprise-class collaboration and document management solution. SharePoint 2010 brings more for developers and on the social side, but much of the heavy lifting for SharePoint already has been done.
After his keynote at SPTechCon, Microsoft's director of SharePoint Tom Rizzo shared with me that he was surprised that so few of the people at his talk were even evaluating SharePoint 2010, and he wondered why that was. Some speculation pointed to the 64-bit requirement that comes with 2010 -- that means upgrading your Windows Server and possibly your SQL Server as well as your SharePoint Server. We also acknowledged that Microsoft did a great job with 2007, which now is a tough act to follow.
All of these factors point to a slow migration to 2010.
Yet, at SPTechCon, we received a lot of feedback from people wishing there was MORE information on 2010. These are folks who view SharePoint as a platform, not just a document repository or collaboration tool. They're bought in to the promise of SharePoint, and want to take advantage of new features such as Business Connectivity Services, FAST search, PerformancePoint reporting and more.
I think a big part of the reason that it's too soon to talk about SharePoint 2010 is simply that is has not been released yet. And, given Microsoft's track record for first releases, most people will wait at least until the first service pack comes out to give 2010 a look. At that time, I believe there will be a greater desire to migrate up to 2010.
As for our SPTechCon (coming to Boston in October), we will again try to provide a mix of sessions that will appeal to both users of MOSS 2007 and folks who want to move to 2010. By then, the new software SHOULD be in general release, and we'll have more information and answers to share. But we also realize a great many of you won't be moving off 2007 just yet, and we'll include a lot of new information for you as well.
Interestingly, looking at the feedback forms form the just-concluded SPTechCon in San Francisco, we heard from some people that the conference was focused too much on SharePoint 2010, and an equal amount from people who felt the conference was focused too much on SharePoint 2007.
To me, that means we hit it just right.
-- David