You either love it or hate it..

There is no best or worst when it comes to choosing a CMS to power your intranet. It’s about finding the right tool for the job in hand.

We are fortunate enough to meet lots of people embarking on intranet projects and 9 times out of 10 Microsoft SharePoint™ is, or has been, considered as the tool for the job (thanks to the scale and awesome power of the Microsoft marketing engine).

The views we get from people when we talk about SharePoint are quite interesting though. Often it’s a love or hate situation. Some people, no matter what you say or do will not be swayed from using SharePoint as the platform for their intranet project. Other people are the polar opposite in that they are crystal clear that SharePoint is not the right solution for them.

The question is, why do some people believe SharePoint is great but others do not? Here are some observations…

Why do people like SharePoint?

• Because it’s Microsoft – “Our IT Strategy is to do everything Microsoft”
• The Cost – “We already own licences so we are going to SharePoint”
• Skill set – “We have lots of SharePoint developers who can build our intranet”
• Timescales – “SharePoint out of the box gives us everything we need so we can get going quickly”

Why do people not like SharePoint?

• Because it’s Microsoft – “I don’t like Microsoft”
• The Cost – “As well as the licences we need to run SharePoint, we have to factor in development time – the cost becomes prohibitive”
• Skill set – “We don’t have any SharePoint skills in house”
• Timescales – “SharePoint out of the box doesn’t include what we need and we don’t have time to build a whole load of new functionality”

So like Marmite it seems that you can generalise the view of SharePoint as either love it or hate it. But this is, and should be, an objective view at a per project level. If a requirement exists that fits SharePoint and the landscape is right then you will love it. If your requirement doesn’t fit SharePoint, or the landscape is not right (or even worse you are forced to use it) then you will (objectively) hate it.

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