Last week, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) quietly made a significant purchase that could have a big impact on future versions of SharePoint and Office governance when it picked up Prodiance, an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) vendor.

As Albert Chew, senior product manager for Office wrote on the Office blog, "The acquisition of Prodiance enables deeper integration of compliance-related solutions into future versions of Office and SharePoint."

As Microsoft sees it, the purchase gives it the ability to build compliance right into Office and SharePoint. In an FAQ about the purchase, Microsoft listed three chief reasons for buying Prodiance:

• Increased efficiency through automated risk assessment;
• Provide policies enforcements, and continuous monitoring and control of end-user documents; and
• Increased security of critical business information.

All of these are, in fact, worthy goals and could help address one of the big criticisms of SharePoint: A company's ability to monitor and protect data stored in SharePoint across an organization.

The purchase price was not disclosed, but Prodiance had been part of the Microsoft partner ecosystem and should fit easily into SharePoint and Office moving forward. 

For more information:
- see the Microsoft blog post

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