Thank god for analysts like Phil Wainewright to articulate the benefits of SaaS. Recently, I came across an article by Phil, in which he writes about a report "August 2009 Forrester Wave for Collaboration Platforms", which is a report by research company Forrester, comparing collaboration platforms on 66 criteria.

According to Phil, such reports reflect a covert analyst bias towards SaaS companies. One of the criteria in the report is "cross platform compatibility" on which SaaS companies have been ranked low, since they cannot be installed on different platforms.

This is ironical, since the reason that SaaS solutions cannot be installed on multiple platforms is that they dont need to be installed on any platform. SaaS solutions can be used and operated from the web browser, irrespective of platform, no matter whether it is Windows, Mac, Linux or even mobile platforms.

Phil has cited the periodicity of these reports as a further instance of covert bias. These reports usually come in about two years, which reflects the upgrade cycle on on premise products. As far as SaaS solutions are concerned, they are upgraded on an ongoing basis, and may have been upgraded 7-8 times by the time the next report comes out.

Very compelling arguments. What do you think?

SharePoint is soon going to have a run for its money. The collaboration domain is getting hotter by the day, with "online collaboration" solutions gaining eminence. 

Google recently launched its major "go Google" advertising campaign, promoting Google Apps, it's online collaboration software, specifically positioning it against Microsoft products. In this campaign, which is being seen as possibility its biggest offensive against Microsoft yet, Google will set up 4 giant billboards at prime locations, apart from using traditional online and offline media. Google Apps has earlier been seen as a substitute for SharePoint, with eminent tech blogger Michael Arrington even describing it as a "SharePoint Killer".

Although Google Apps does not duplicate all of SharePoint's power, it (and other solutions in the online collaboration domain) does offer a viable alternative for small to medium sized businesses, bringing technology in a simple, end user oriented format, against SharePoint which is complex and expensive.   

Although belatedly, Microsoft realised that it needed to enter the "online collaboration" market as well, as it was steadily growing in popularity. It launched the online version of SharePoint, simply called "SharePoint Online". Around the same time it launched Microsoft BPOS, which was closer in functionality to Google Apps as it also includes messaging (Exchange Online) and conferencing (LiveMeeting) capabilities.

If it can be taken as the strategic importance of this domain, Microsoft has also gone into overgear to promote Microsoft BPOS, its parallel product. It has been agressively trying to push it into the market with the help of its massive partner network. 

Apart from these two players, there are players in the market, who have been in the web based "SharePoint alternative" market for much longer than either of Google and Microsoft. HyperOffice is one such player, which have been offering the HyperOffice Collaboration Suite to SMBs since 1998. HyperOffice is also in competition with Google Apps and Microsoft BPOS, because in addition to collaboration software features, it also includes messaging and web conferencing features. But HyperOffice is focused specifically towards the small business segment, and has also designed its products for that market, while Google Apps and Microsoft BPOS are both interested in the jucier, mid to large sized business market.

In recent times, a lot of debate has been going around about the suitability of Sharepoint as an Enterprise 2.0 tool. The initial hype and MS marketing efforts around SharePoint caused massive adoption (they sold a 100 million licences as far back as in March 2008 - staggering!!). But now that the hype has somewhat settled down, and enterprises have had real experience with using the product for business realities, the true strengths and weaknesses of Sharepoint have started to emerge.

First it would make sense to define what "enterprise 2.0" means. According to wikipedia Enterprise 2.0 is "a term describing social software used in "enterprise" (business) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software, which imposes structure prior to use, enterprise social software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure."

From the above, it is obvious that Enterprise 2.0 emphasizes a bottom up approach, lesser structure, and greater communication and interaction across organizational boundaries. Practical experience, however, has taught that in spite of its initial promise, SharePoint is not proving to be a tool which encourages the above cornerstones of enterprise 2.0. The main problems are its complexity, which discourages end user participation and use. On the other hand, some SaaS collaboration companies traditionally targeting small to mid sized companies are witnessing enterprises gravitating towards their products. This is likely because of the end user orientation of these solutions, as they have been developed for non expert small business users.

Dion Heathcliff from ZNet has very insightfully listed out the shortcomings of SharePoint as an enterprise tool.

1) SharePoint is not a Web 2.0 native.

2) The technology landscape of the enterprise environment fits SharePoint well; the business requirements to a lesser extent.

3) The wilds of the open network can be a challenge for Sharepoint.

4) Self-service capabilities are lacking or not emphasized.

5) Cost and complexity.

The verdict is summed up by Thomas Vander Wal's emphatic conclusion - Sharepoint is NOT Enterprise 2.0!