Thursday, December 4, 2008

Re: Microsoft Sharepoint

I managed development of 9 different sites=A0using various flavors of Share=
Point over the past=A03 years.=A0 It is an extreemly powerful and flexible =
platform with a lot of features and=A0it can be configured so that any leve=
l of end user will find it easy to use. They have=A0also increased their Ma=
c support with MOSS so that it is now tolerable to use with Macs.=A0 That s=
aid,=A0configuring, implimenting=A0and developing for the platform is not s=
omething you are going to pick up easily.=A0=A0=0A=0AAny large implimentati=
on (500 or more users or use of extended functionality) will require=A0MS S=
QL=A0Server experience,=A0SharePoint Experience, and possibly .Net developm=
ent experience.=A0 The good newes is that these skills are fairly common in=
the market and you will not pay a premium.=A0 The bad news is that you wil=
l likely have to have at least one staff member well versed, and they may f=
ind commerical oppertunities very attractive.=0A=0AThe pricing is complicat=
ed and there are many variations beyond Services and Portal with large func=
tional differences (e.g. services have limited access for anynomous users m=
aking it nearly useless as a public facing web site).=A0 It is hard to say =
what you will need but on average I found=A03-6 months to impliment a ratio=
nal time (2 week to 1 year was the full scope of my deployments).=A0=0A=0AA=
mong all of the CMS systems I have used throught the years, I think SharePo=
int (as of MOSS) is the best, but it is not for the faint of heart.=A0 Make=
sure you budget for a month or so of professional services to help support=
you through the process.=A0 Gotchas can include:=A0 Cost of specialized ba=
ckup software (you have to back up the DB and SP file system).=A0 You proba=
bly want to set up for clustering fromt the start so it is easier to add ca=
pacity.=A0 Search can be a performance killer if not set up properly and de=
pending on the size of your site you may want it on a seperate server.=A0 I=
t does not handle non-MS file types all that well (i.e. they are excluded f=
rom content searches).=A0 That is all I can remember today.=0A=0A_J=0A_____=
_______________________=0AJason at jasonpj@yahoo.com =0A=0A=0A=0A=0A_______=
_________________________=0AFrom: Brian Bedrick <bbedrick@yahoo.com>=0ATo: =
ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU=0ASent: Thursday, December 4, 2008 11:30:21 AM=0ASu=
bject: Microsoft Sharepoint=0A=0AAnybody have any experience with Microsoft=
Sharepoint?=A0 They were just here for a meeting and everybody was impress=
ed with the sales pitch.=A0 Just curious if anybody knows if they can follo=
w through on the promises and how sophisticated we as users=A0need to be to=
take advantage of all the functionality.=A0 Thanks=0A=0ABrian Bedrick=0AIn=
ternational School of Brussels=0A=0A[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds=
.org/ISED-L ]=0ASubmissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons=
, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.=0ARSS Feed, http://list=
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