sharepoint alternatives

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SharePoint: Where it comes up short and what you could use instead

North Patrol Oy 2013 / 2013-11-06 / J. Boye Aarhus 13

Perttu Tolvanen, Web & CMS Expert, @perttutolvanen

© 2013 North Patrol Oy2

Security agency for web projects


Security agency for web projects

- Vendor-neutral CMS consultants- Helsinki-based, but most clients

operate in Northern Europe / Scandinavia / Russia

- CMS selections and partner selections for large projects

- Founded 2012, growing

North Patrol Oy 20134

Agenda

Best-fit use cases for

SharePoint

Challenging, but typical scenarios

for SharePoint

Main challengers for SharePoint in each scenario


Speaker’s background

• Technology advisor in web & extranet & intranet projects– Lot of background with Microsoft tools, involved in SharePoint projects since 2007– Also a lot of project experience with Oracle’s systems and open source systems like

Liferay and Drupal– Most of the customers are large organisations headquartered in Finland– Note: Finland is a Microsoft & open source country (so I am biased in some ways)

• Lessons learned in buying IT systems1. Only choose products that are supported by (somewhat) local partners

2. Features don’t matter, philosophy of the product matters

3. Long-term success is dictated more by the partner selection than the product


SharePoint as a product and platform


• Document management product• Team sites & collaboration• Search engine for documents &

pages• Decent publishing system • Portal platform wannabe• Social intranet platform wannabe

Cloud is the new business of Microsoft and O365 is the gateway.


• Document management product• Team sites & collaboration• Search engine for documents &

pages• Decent publishing system • Portal platform wannabe• Social intranet platform wannabe

Out of bounds:

Application development

platform

Out of bounds: Websites

with eCommerce

Cloud is the new business of Microsoft and O365 is the gateway.

Too early to say: Social

layer on top of other services

Source: http://www.interact-intranet.com/sharepoint-alternative/

Remember: SharePoint is not a light-weight

“point solution”. If you go SharePoint, you

should consider implementing all the

best-fit-scenarios.

http://www.interact-intranet.com/sharepoint-alternative/


Best-fit scenarios for SharePoint


“The big picture”

HR systems(Oracle, SAP, etc)

Intranet News, guidelines,

phonebook, important documents, search

Phonebook / people profiles

ERP (SAP & others)

(+ other line of business systems)

CRM

Partner extranets

Websites

Customer extranets

eCommerce

Custom apps

Document management

& project sites







ERP (SAP & others)


CRM

Partner extranets

Websites

Customer extranets

eCommerce

Custom apps

Document management

& project sites

Why NOT SharePoint?







ERP (SAP & others)


CRM

Partner extranets

Websites

Customer extranets

eCommerce

Custom apps

Document management

& project sites

Why NOT SharePoint?

Why the HELL

SharePoint?


Best-fits

“Social, one company intranets”

(organisations which have a common purpose

and everyone can see everything)

Partner extranets

(B2B, document-centric)

Social team sites and document management

(eg. University departments or team site areas inside large

corporations)


Social intranets for

heterogeneous organizations

(eg. ”Groups”, large organisations with

independent business divisions or

local operations) Customer extranets

Best-fits + challenging, but typical scenarios

Websites without eCommerce


(organisations which have a common purpose

and everyone can see everything)

Partner extranets

(B2B, document-centric)


(eg. University departments or team site areas inside large

corporations)


Challengers for each scenario

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Scenarios

© 2013 North Patrol Oy

1. Social, one company intranets2. Social intranets for heterogeneous

organizations3. Social team sites & document

management4. Partner extranets5. Customer extranets6. Websites without eCommerce

Direct challengers

In-direct challengers

Products that are competing with SharePoint directly or clients see them competing with SharePoint directly.

Products that do not compete directly, but clients see them as alternative choices for things SharePoint does.

Expensive products

Cheaper alternatives

Scenario 1: Social, one company intranets


• SharePoint is the king of the hill• SharePoint’s strenghts:– Newsfeed for social concepts– Document library capabilities– People profiles and search– Both on-premise and cloud choices

• Pain points:– Licence cost can be high– No easy personalization capabilities for

the intranet frontpage– Customizations expensive to build– Limited multilanguage management

Direct challengers


Social intranet players

Cost-effective alternatives

Additional sources:- UK market information received also from Sam Marshall (http://www.clearboxconsulting.co.uk/)- Sweden’s market info received from Kristian Norling (http://norling.co/)- Netherland’s market info received from Eric Haartman (http://www.erikhartmancommunicatie.nl)

http://www.clearboxconsulting.co.uk/

http://norling.co/

http://norling.co/

http://www.erikhartmancommunicatie.nl/


• SharePoint is the king of the hill• SharePoint’s strenghts:– Newsfeed for social concepts– Document library capabilities– People profiles and search– Both on-premise and cloud choices

• Pain points:– Licence cost can be high– No easy personalization capabilities for

the intranet frontpage– Customizations expensive to build– Limited multilanguage management

Direct challengers




Additional sources:- UK market information received also from Sam Marshall (http://www.clearboxconsulting.co.uk/)- Sweden’s market info received from Kristian Norling (http://norling.co/)- Netherland’s market info received from Eric Haartman (http://www.erikhartmancommunicatie.nl)

Summary: Most intranet concepts could be done with any of the tools. Document

library capabilities and social feeds differentate

some, but not much. Atlassian Confluence and

Interact are the main challengers usually.

http://www.clearboxconsulting.co.uk/

http://norling.co/

http://norling.co/

http://www.erikhartmancommunicatie.nl/

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Scenario 2: Social intranets for heterogeneous organisations


• SharePoint is often chosen for this scenario, but this is often really hard to do with SharePoint!

• SharePoint’s strenghts:– Newsfeed for social concepts– Document library capabilities– People profiles and search

• Pain points:– No easy personalization capabilities for the

intranet frontpage– Limited content targeting capabilities– Limited content re-use capabilities– Customizations expensive to build– Limited multilanguage management

Direct challengers




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Direct challengers




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Direct challengers




Summary: Intranet concepts for large, heterogeneous organisations are usually more “portal scenarios”

than “SharePoint scenarios”.

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Scenario 3: Social team sites with document management


• Some tools are more social than others and have better messaging/notification systems, but in the end differences are small

• Only few tools have some ’philosophy’ behing them, eg. Basecamp

• But there are few things that differentate… Most notably…



• Saving changes directly to team site’s document library is something that only MS Office programs do – and only with SharePoint

• MS however has published the standard, but only Alfresco has used it so far in their cloud-service

• Other products use WEBDAV or some plugin/software to upload/download in the background (=> limited)

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• SharePoint is the king of the hill • SharePoint’s strenghts:– Newsfeed for discussions– Integration with Office (ctrl+s saves

directly to SharePoint)– Teamsites can be extended and

customized for different use cases– Offline editing to documents

• Pain points:– Licence cost can be high– Building a hybrid environment not really

possible yet (cloud + on-premise)– Creates a siloed environment by default

Direct challengers



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• SharePoint is the king of the hill • SharePoint’s strenghts:– Newsfeed for discussions– Integration with Office (ctrl+s saves

directly to SharePoint)– Teamsites can be extended and

customized for different use cases– Offline editing to documents

• Pain points:– Licence cost can be high– Building a hybrid environment not really

possible yet (cloud + on-premise)– Creates a siloed environment by default

Direct challengers



Summary: Can you live without documents? If yes,

then you have options, if not, then choices are very

limited.

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Scenario 4: Partner extranets


• Mostly document-centric information sharing, but some custom elements and/or reporting views

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• SharePoint is very strong in this scenario when most use cases are document-centric use cases

• SharePoint’s strenghts:– Document library capabilities– Extensible team site templates– Integration to other MS products

• Pain points:– Integration to non-MS systems– User access management demands

separate products (eg. UAG)– Hybrid environments difficult to setup

Direct challengers



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• SharePoint is very strong in this scenario when most use cases are document-centric use cases

• SharePoint’s strenghts:– Document library capabilities– Extensible team site templates– Integration to other MS products

• Pain points:– Integration to non-MS systems– User access management demands

separate products (eg. UAG)– Hybrid environments difficult to setup

Direct challengers



Summary: Again, if you need the document collaboration

then there are few real options for SharePoint.

Mainly Alfresco. If you don’t need the documents then probably any portal works

for you.

Scenario 5: Customer extranets

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• SharePoint is shortlisted for this scenario only in Microsoft-heavy companies

• SharePoint’s strenghts:– Integration to other MS products

(especially to Biztalk)– Document library capabilities

• Pain points:– Integration to non-MS systems– Limited support for different user access

management possibilities– Customizations are expensive to build

and maintain & hard to update

Direct challengers


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(especially to Biztalk)– Document library capabilities

• Pain points:– Integration to non-MS systems– Limited support for different user access

management possibilities– Customizations are expensive to build

and maintain & hard to update

Direct challengers


Summary: Customer extranets rarely benefit from

SharePoint unless all the background systems are also

MS-products. Even a traditional portal product

might not be needed.

Scenario 6: Websites without eCommerce

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(especially to Biztalk)

• Pain points:– Limited digital marketing capabilities– Limited multilanguage capabilities– Limited content re-use capabilities– Limited preview capabilities– Expensive to implement

Direct challengers



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(especially to Biztalk)

• Pain points:– Limited digital marketing capabilities– Limited multilanguage capabilities– Limited content re-use capabilities– Limited preview capabilities– Expensive to implement

Direct challengers



Summary: If you have too much money and don’t

really care about running an effective online channel you should do the website with

SharePoint.

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Summary


• Great for SharePoint, if you have the money for licencees and implementation:1. Social, one company intranets

2. Social team sites & document management

3. Partner extranets (when it’s about documents and team sites)

• For a more cost-effective intranet solution you might consider Atlassian Confluence or dedicated intranet products like Interact or Igloo (but many of them are not very cheap for larger orgs!).

• For document management you might consider Alfresco (great Office integration) or cloud-solutions like Huddle or M-Files. Currently Office integration is the main problem for most alternatives.

• For complex intranets with personalization demands you should evaluate portal products that have local partners near you (eg. Oracle, Liferay or Jahia). SharePoint can be really problematic in more complex scenarios even if you had the money to customize.

• For customer extranets you should evaluate portals or Web CMS solutions or consider even building them as custom solutions. SharePoint rarely makes sense for customer extranets.

• For websites SharePoint makes sense only when you have to integrate to other MS products heavily (eg. Biztalk), and even then systems like EPiServer are usually better and cheaper.


Partner extranets



Thank you.

- Slides will be available in SlideShare (follow #jboye13)

- Twitter: @perttutolvanen and @NorthPatrol

- [email protected] http://www.northpatrol.com

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