SharePoint Alternative for Enterprises?
We can't help but feel the slight self satisfaction of the "I
told you so" feeling at the recent debate raging between corporate
technology pundits. The moot point is "SharePoint in Enterprise 2.0"
and it seems like almost every who's who in the space has something to
say.
The general verdict is in the direction "Sharepoint has
serious shortcomings as an enterprise 2.0 tool". What especially
pleases us is that we have been making the same arguments for years now
for growing businesses. We have long seen that Sharepoint has serious
shortcomings as a collaboration solution for growing businesses, which
is why we have positioned ourselves strongly as a "Sharepoint Alternative", and have gained a high relevance in the arena (high ranking in Google results for "SharePoint alternative" shall testify).
Now
enterprises seem to be learning the same lessons. As Dion Hinchcliffe
from ZDNet lists out "The issues and challenges of using SharePoint for
Enterprise 2.0" in his recent much discussed article "Sharepoint - The Good, the Bad and The Ugly", it feels like we're speaking from his lips. Thomas Vander Wal echoes the sentiments in "SharePoint 2007: Gateway Drug to Enterprise Social Tools", where he concludes decisively "SharePoint is not Enterprise 2.0".
Here's Dion's list with my elaborations, and of course, our baby HyperOffice in comaprison on each count:-
1. Complexity. No matter how Sharepoint's marketers
market it, it is not a user friendly tool. It is powerful no doubt, but
its wasted power in many cases, as the complexity leads to many of the
features just lying waste. A recent study from AIIM found that
Sharepoint is primarily used for file sharing.
As Dion puts it, SharePoint needs "highly trained implementors,
administrators, and technical support staff are required to deploy and
run it, which all add to the total cost of ownership." and adds
"inherent sophistication can also mean slow adoption and low engagement
by users". According to the above quoted study 75% of the respondents
said "implementation of SharePoint took one year or less". That is
almost unimaginable in a growing business which need solutions to be up
and running within days.
HyperOffice in Comparison - HyperOffice can be deployed in less than a day and almost anyone can set it up. The features are completely "out of the box", and designed for end users. The onus is on using features - online document management, portals and workspaces, customization, forums, task management, shared calendars, polls etc - rather than the backend technology.
2. Cost. SharePoint was always developed for enterprises and is also priced thus. It can be "very expensive" (Dion's words) for a large installation. Last year CMSWire did an analysis on the SharePoint cost structure which it termed as "very confusing" and came up with some whopping figures.
For a company to have web content management for their public site only they are looking at roughly US$ 40-80,000 (2 servers) for licenses alone. Now if they also want to have web content management for their intranet add another US$ 4500 minimum (1 license). That's a total of $85,000 for something they previously paid between $6 to $48k for (1-2 servers).
HyperOffice in Comparison - HyperOffice costs $10 per user, and users can scale up and down as per your needs and number of users.
3. SharePoint is not a Web 2.0 native. The internet is
essential to businesses as a medium of communication and collaboration
today. The company can no longer be content to interact only inside the
company firewall with new business realities - traveling employees,
telecommuting, outsourced vendors often in another corner of the world,
the emergence of powerful mobile platforms and the associated demand of
users for corporate information on their mobiles, and the greater need
to collaborate with partners and customers outside the firewall. This
requires that your applications be effective in diverse environments -
web browsers, operating systems, computing devices etc. Sharepoint
certainly falls short on this count.
HyperOffice in Comparison - Since its earliest days (way back in 1998) the HyperOffice Collaboration Suite was always developed as a web native application. In fact HyperOffice was one of the first companies to offer applications under the web based, software-as-a-service model, which is so much the rage today.
4. The technology landscape of the enterprise environment fits SharePoint well; the business requirements to a lesser extent.
Admittedly SharePoint does suit hierarchical organizations, which have
great security needs and do not want to encourage horizontal and
diagonal communication across the organization. But this does not
define many organizations of today as the movement is towards greater
openness and communication. As Thomas Vander Val says "The new approach
is toward embracing the shift toward horizontal organizations, open
sharing, self-organizing groups around subjects that matter to
individuals as well as the organization."
HyperOffice in Comparison - HyperOffice's ease of use
allows it to be used at the department or team level without the need
for IT intermediation. This fosters an open "self service" culture
where communication can flow across the organization based on needs. At
the same time HyperOffice offers administrative tools and security at
different such as the portal, workspace or folder, which allows for
implementation of security policies.
5. The wilds of the open network can be a challenge for Sharepoint.
As mentioned before in point 3, SharePoint is not the best "internet
facing" solution when it comes to functioning on the browser side and
on mobiles. According to Dion "this makes opening up SharePoint
environments to work with partners, customers, and even the general
public.....to be more difficult than with other platforms which were
designed to function in highly diverse environments." I highly
recommend you check out this chart which lists out SharePoint effectiveness on different environments.
HyperOffice in Comparison - HyperOffice was designed for
deployment over the internet from day one, and supports all major
browsers on PC and Mac. In addition we have optimized it and added
features for access from most popular mobile platforms like iPhone and Blackberry.
6. Self-service capabilities are lacking or not emphasized. Due
to its inherent sophistication, Sharepoint discourages end users from
taking control of their solution, and customize it to local needs.
According to Dion "SharePoint installations consist of....smaller
sites, each of which must be made consistent in terms of layout and
navigation if centralized administration and governance is to be
effective". Users "should be able to create sites within SharePoint,
customize them over time to meet the local requirements, and let them
evolve and improve through shared contributions." which SharePoint does
not easily allow.
Not to take the credit from SharePoint, it has seen massive adoption in its early days. As Thomas Vander Val says in his article "SharePoint 2007: Gateway Drug to Enterprise Social Tools", in spite of falling short of its promise SharePoint has whetted the appetite of enterprises for easy to use communication and collaboration applications that allow for free flowing interaction where end users are in control. But now that the customers are looking for better answers, and SaaS solutions might be it for them.
Did I mention we are noticing that more and more large organizations coming on board at HyperOffice?
