Results

After all of my inquiries and research into real measurable data comparing SharePoint Dev and Maint costs…. there is no data.

Everyone I talked to is in the same boat we are – just getting going, spending more money on SharePoint at the moment, but with no real idea of what it will cost long-term. It is all guesswork.

I’ve seen no evidence that anyone really is having a successful migration that saves them money. If anyone does have evidence, feel free to share it.

But as I look hard at the two technologies, I see a few things… and this may show my bias, but it is what I see:

1. SharePoint ties everyone to MS Office. Why? Most other web technologies are working to eliminate desktop products, not push your web site down into your desktop. SharePoint does not take your enterprise to the web, it marries you to Microsoft Products at a very deep level.
2. There is no SharePoint expertise internal to the corporate world. Consultants and business partners have the majority of skills, and very few major projects are done without shelling out money to them.
3. Microsoft does not yet have their training together. The only available training that I have found is through their business partners. I went to that training. I found it very basic.

In general, SharePoint feels like a big old marketing scam to me. It doesn’t do as much out of the box as Microsoft would have you believe, but it does give Microsoft and their partners a good chunk of money. A decision to go with SharePoint is a decision to tie yourself into their full product line.

Now, does that mean it is the wrong decision? Not necessarily. I don’t know. It depends on your requirements, I suppose. It certainly makes me nervous, though. Why shake up the status quo for a new technology that nobody is skilled in, that costs more money to deploy, that is guesswork for long-term costs, and that ties you to a specific vendor? Even if it did perform as advertised, I just don’t see justifiable answers to that question.