David Akka Blog

Microsoft SharePoint: Pros and Cons

 Twitter |  Facebook |  digg it |   delicious |   StumbleUpon |   LinkedIn |  reddit 

A lot of people ask us about Microsoft SharePoint benefits and also integration pain. With a new version (Microsoft SparePoint 2010) hitting our IT departments in the first half of this year, we thought it was time to take a look at the pros, cons and challenges behind the software.

Initially, the 2007 release proved popular because of its ability to capture project chat in the background, providing an important repository of granular data that would otherwise not have been organised and filtered by busy professionals. IT pros liked it because it offered collaboration, but in-house and under some level of control.

Of course, Magic Software announced its new iBOLT business integration suite for Microsoft SharePoint earlier this year, which provides integration between Microsoft SharePoint and enterprise systems including ERP, CRM, HRIS and other critical business functions as well as social media content from websites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

The social media integration aspect is not to be underestimated. Microsoft recently announced that Outlook 2010 would allow workers to incorporate social media feeds, and it was recently revealed that Twitter carries 50 million messages per day – that's an awe-inspiring 600 per second!

One of the major 'cons' of the old Microsoft SharePoint was that while it is a good framework to present information, it was weak on managing data sources and preparing them for presentation. However, combining Magic Software’s iBOLT and Microsoft SharePoint solves this problem, as iBOLT acts as the "glue" between the various applications and Microsoft SharePoint. For example, a lot of our users have came to us complaining of the lengthy and complex process involved in integrating SAP R/3 with Microsoft SharePoint, or Lotus Notes or JD Edward with Microsoft SharePoint. This pushed up the costs associated with migration and was a major factor behind our development of iBOLT to solve this problem rather neatly.

So what's new in Microsoft SharePoint 2010? Well, end-user tools such as blogs and wikis have received more emphasis, and IT pros will be pleased with the new range of app management, backup and recovery resources and tools.

These new features will surely increase the viability of Microsoft SharePoint as a recognised enterprise and SME product for collaboration and information sharing.  However, bringing together Microsoft SharePoint and existing enterprise data takes some experience and skill. That’s why we have developed a special version of iBOLT to allow organisations to hook Microsoft SharePoint applications into enterprise data sources through a configuration paradigm, as opposed to writing low-level code. This allows a business analyst to map database fields from ERP, HRIS etc applications into Microsoft SharePoint using drag-and-drop motions in iBOLT's graphical editors.  

Finally however, it’s important to remember that while the new Microsoft SharePoint version offers much, it also has some big demands in return. Many businesses are still sitting on the adoption fence, concerned over the dramatic feature changes and 64-bit hardware requirements of Microsoft SharePoint 2010…..so it’s not an implementation decision to rush into!