To Sharepoint or not to Sharepoint…

It’s a million-dollar question for sure. Sharepoint has gained a lot of momentum, but will it last?

Until recently, I did not know very much about this tool, and I honestly saw it only as a file-storage system. That’s because many companies only use it as such, and never truly find out how Sharepoint can be used as an external facing website and internal CMS.

Now that I am finding out about Sharepoint, I find it daunting, to say the least and not the user-friendly solution I’d hoped for.

Bandwagon
Every other company you meet has a “Sharepoint Developer” or a “Sharepoint Branding Expert.” Everyone is getting a piece of this colossal Microsoft monster, and why not? Sharepoint offers what might be “easier” solutions to creating intranets and website, yet doing it right takes skill and practice most businesses don’t have. But as a small shop, I wouldn’t put all my eggs in this Microsoft basket. Take it from CMS Watch, the glory days might not last forever.

Tangled Web
Microsoft isn’t making it easy. In a seminar about this topic I asked, “Why is it difficult to find the master CSS file?” The answer, “Because it’s Microsoft.” And that came from professionals in the Sharepoint game. Even if you finally figure out all the ins and outs, the bugs and cheats, it’s likely you will want to upgrade to 2010. Start over…

Branding
So, I take a Sharepoint template, then just drop my logo and styles in, right? Seems easy enough, we’ve all used templates in one form or another. Well, maybe not like this. Sharepoint templates are controlled by 8,000 (2007) to 20,000 (2010) lines of CSS. You’ll have to sort through those to make your changes correctly.

Bottom Line
The bottom line is I’m not convinced that this is the “better” way to make websites. You will have to start with this product then customize it to your needs, often through much headache, cost and confusion. If you already have skilled web developers, stick with that. There is sure to be another big thing soon enough that is better, bigger and more powerful.