Ferris Research: An assessment of Windows SharePoint Services
October 18 2004
Ferris Research has just published a research
paper assessing Microsoft's Windows SharePoint Services
(with a healthy dose of SharePoint Portal Server 2003 included as well).
I don't usually link to analyst reports on the blog, especially ones
that are subscriber-only access. This one, though, is a bit too good
to pass up, because it's the first report I've seen that cuts past the
hype and describes real-world usage scenarios.
Here are some of Ferris's recommendations:
Recommendations for Users:Hopefully you'll see more about this report in the future.
- Do not embrace WSS unless you are willing to be 100% Microsoft
- Don't think that WSS is free, even if that is Microsoft's spin on it.
- Put other collaborative workspace products higher on the evaluation list.
- Implement for small LAN-based groups.
- Consider Web parts available from others.
Post a Comment
- 2
Rob Novak http://www.lotusdigerati.com | 10/18/2004 6:01:24 PM
Maybe I'm biased, but I've always seen the value in this type of recommendation "Consider Web parts available from others." - regardless of the framework platform.
- 3
Wild Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 10/19/2004 9:52:47 AM
Between Sharepoint and Domino ? I recall an IBM BP presentation that goes into the licensing costs, server costs, etc..
Wonder if that one is publicly available - if so, Ed, it would make a wonderful link in this thread..
---* Bill
- 4
Peter de Haas www.peterdehaas.com | 10/20/2004 4:49:50 PM
I haven't read this report yet, but I have some question on how unbiassed the author of this report is :
"In parallel with his work at Ferris Research, Michael founded Teamlink Communications in 1997, a collaborative solutions provider in New Zealand, with a team focused on enabling organizations to leverage the power of Notes and Domino for business success. Prior to that, he was the messaging strategist at Telecom New"
- 5
Jack Dausman http://LeadershipByNumbers.com | 10/21/2004 7:56:15 AM
The best quote, Ed, on the Ferris site has to be, "Even in a Microsoft-dominated setting, WSS has such significant shortcomings that we recommend avoiding it."
Ouch.
- 6
Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 10/21/2004 9:26:33 AM
@4 Peter - funny to hear you say this. You should check out Michael's site at { Link } and see if you still feel this way.
Background <> bias. If this were true, it would be difficult to believe anyone who is ex-Lotus now employed by Microsoft, wouldn't it be?
- 7
Michael Sampson www.shared-spaces.com | 10/21/2004 12:22:29 PM
@4 Peter - valid question. (1) Teamlink operated from 1997-2000, and since then I've spent most of my time (2000-2003) at Ferris being an analyst, and my new company, Shared Spaces (2003-2004), is a vendor neutral analyst and consulting firm. (2) The base research for the report was done by the entire Ferris team when I wasn't there. I was asked to write it up. (3) The report went through Microsoft for two pre-publication vendor reviews. Some points were clarified, and other points were strengthened in their critique based on further input from Microsoft.
- 8
Richi Jennings http://richi.co.uk/ | 10/26/2004 10:51:38 AM
I was one of the Ferris analysts who struggled to use SP to help us collaborate. We are distributed all over the world, and it would have been nice if SP was more useful than (say) a simple Wiki+WebDAV filesystem.
It wasn't: performance and compatibility were the main issues from my perspective.
r.
- 9
Peter de Haas www.peterdehaas.com | 10/26/2004 1:16:26 PM
@ Richi
Makes you wonder who helped you design and implement this system. All this advise to companioes and yet struggeling to get your own internal systems running properly ?
Not a very good commercial.
- 10
Michael Sampson www.shared-spaces.com | 10/26/2004 3:22:50 PM
Peter, since you work for Microsoft, you have access as a FRI client to read the paper. Read it, and then post your review. Perhaps in dogfooding your products we didn't add the correct tasties, and so the resultant choking was not normal.
- 11
Mark Kruger http://www.sharepointblogs.com/mkruger | 10/21/2005 8:39:03 PM
Some of the assessments are too funny. It's like putting grandma at the indy 500 and asking her how the car handled... I've been doing real-world installations of SharePoint for the past 4 years dating back to the early Team Services days. If you want a successful portal, you need the RIGHT people working on it which more often that not, regardless of the Portal... doesnt happen. You'd want a mechanic and not a surgeon working on your car wouldn't you? With that said, I really doubt you'd want a mechanic performing surgery on you. The right people make a difference.
SharePoint isnt difficult at all and offers a WHOLE lot out of the box. SharePoint is also a platform that is flexible enough to be built upon. It's a .NET developer's dream for customization and development opportunities. SharePoint Portal Server is used for large organization with WSS sites being used for smaller subsets of teams much like a "real" organization. Maybe I'm mistaken but the mailroom clerks and the CEO of a company don't need to collaborate too often ;)
Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) IS free as an addon to Windows Server 2003 and does satisfy basic collaboration needs. If you're looking for an enterprise solution, I won't hesitate to recommend purchasing SharePoint Portal Server which is built upon Windows SharePoint Services. You're basically getting a free trial of functionality via WSS.
The truth is that most oranizations have Microsoft Office (check any sales report if you doubt) so why not take advantage of the integration capabilities using SharePoint.
As for the last statement of using web part from others.. That's a testimony to the community using SharePoint and true collaboration on a much larger scale. There are many free web parts out there that people share within the community. If you don't want to use them, you can at least learn from them.
If SharePoint doesn't integrate well and play nice with others, then please explain to me why there are so many 3rd party products and vendors out there? I see a lot of promise with SharePoint and some of these reports aren't worth the time or money to even acknowledge them.
LOL -- I'm not a subscriber, but the table of contents that you can see for free is pretty telling!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Table of Contents
An Assessment of Windows Sharepoint Services
Windows SharePoint Services Tutorial
Key Concepts
One Element of Microsoft's Collaboration Strategy
Major WSS Problems
Continual Addition of Workspaces: Design Too Basic
Requires Fast Real-TIme Access
No Offline Use
Optimal Experience With Other Microsoft Tools
Difficult Intrasite Navigation
No Overall Summary of Changes
Poor Search Capabilities
Poor Backup Architecture
SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Recommendations for Microsoft
Recommendations for Users
Summary
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~