SharePoint Alternatives Comparison

A large number of variables need to be considered while comparing various alternatives to SharePoint. SharePoint features, additional collaboration features, cost, space provided, & users allowed all need to be considered in tandem, and a balance needs to de struck in light of needs. A comprehensive comparison of the more prominent offerings is given under. Brief profiles of these companies are added at the end.

 Features Comparison

	Intermedia	HyperOffice	1 & 1	SharePoint 360	Apptix
Standard SharePoint Features
Document Management
Document Collaboration
File Locking
Versioning
Notifications
Auditiing
Virtual Drives
Shared Folders
Any Browser
Intranet/Extranet Publishing
Custom pages for employees, depts, teams
Client, partner, vendor portals
Turn Sections on/off
Content Management/Customization
Publish/Manage content on Intranet/Extranet
Standard Templates
Complete web site customization
Extras
Email
Business Email
Spam Protection
IMAP/POP3 Support
Outlook/Outlook Express Integration
Any Browser
Mobile Access
Collaboration
Shared Contacts	Advanced	Advanced	Basic	Basic	Basic
Shared Calendaring	Advanced	Advanced	Basic	Basic	Basic
Task Management	Advanced	Advanced	Basic	Advanced	Basic
Voting		Advanced
Forums	Advanced	Advanced
Shared Links		Advanced

Cost Comparison

Costs need to be seen in a broad perspective, taking the total cost of ownership in account. In addition to initial and ongoing product costs this includes set up costs, costs of maintenance, costs of training, & cost of support.

In addition it makes sense to calculate costs for different expected future scenarios. This would include expected number of users and memory usage. Products which look very similar at the face of it cost wise, may lead to markedly different costs and team size and usage grows.

Lastly, costs need to be considered in light of the features offered, rather than in isolation.

SharePoint Costs

Total Costs of Ownership (TCO) for SharePoint can be broadly broken down into two categories

Initial Costs:

• Operating System Software
• License & Subscription Costs
• Email client(s)
• Spam and Virus control software and hardware
• Real time back-up software and hardware
• Server hardware
• Software/Hardware required for redundancy, system uptime and data integrity
• Load balancing, security, monitoring and connectivity software/hardware
• Labor costs associated with system integration & configuration

Product Costs:

SharePoint requires an ANNUAL licensing purchase for every :

• End-user
• Server
• Requires ANNUAL maintenance contract purchase.

Ongoing Costs:

• Software upgrades
• IT infrastructure, software and hardware maintenance costs
• Operating costs associated with system uptime, data backup and integrity
• User support and training costs
• Hardware upgrades

An estimate of annual SharePoint costs for different scenarios is provided below:

SAAS SharePoint Alternatives Costs

Near Zero Initial Costs - In comparison, hosted SharePoint alternatives offer the benefit of almost completely doing away with “Initial costs”.

User/Space based Monthly Fees - The fee structure is a monthly fee based on number of users and storage space. And if a company want to upgrade there is usually an extra per-user and per-GB fees. This greatly enhances the predictability of the costs because there are almost no other costs involved.

No Support or Training Costs - Most of the better hosting companies provide free live support and customer training. This is in stark contrast to SharePoint which requires purchase of an annual service contract for every user.

A comparison of Annual Costs for SharePoint and one of its alternatives for different scenarios is provided below:

As can be seen, the total costs start to converge as the scale of the enterprise increases, making SharePoint more suitable for large businesses.

The Choice Between Sharepoint Alternatives

As emphasized earlier, even when making a decision between SharePoint alternatives, it makes sense to take a total cost approach. Costs need to be analyzed in light of the feature set, security, support, flexibility & user friendliness. It’s also important to be wary of “hidden” costs, costs that will certainly not be bold and flashing on the site. Some possible “hidden” costs could be:

• Extra costs for live support
• Extra costs for mobile access
• Costs for training
• Costs for extra storage

Also, it’s important to be aware of the possible growth path your company, and corresponding resource needs. Costs need to be projected for this expected growth path.

Package Comparison of Various Alternatives

*Space allowed for SharePoint

A cost comparison of these companies for a hypothetical scenario (25 users, 5 GB storage space) is provided below:

Quick Takes

1 & 1 - Offers all the basic SharePoint functionality + business email. One problem is scalability. There doesn’t seem to be any plan for more than 50 persons. Also 3 month’s fees has to be paid in advance.

Apptix - Structured slightly differently from other offerings. Teams can collaborate on different information, mainly documents, at “meeting workspaces”, i.e., pages created specifically for meetings. Business email is not part of the package. Basic calendaring and contact management is allowed. Degree of customizability of pages is low.

HyperOffice - Our personal favorite. Offers the most comprehensive feature set, which are well integrated, and easy to understand and use. Includes SharePoint functionality, business email as well as pretty advanced contact, calendar and task management tools. The best bet from a cost benefit ratio standpoint.

SharePoint 360 - Offers all the basic SharePoint functionality. One cool extra feature is the “Nintex Workflow 2007™” tool, a task management tool which allows for drag and drop setting up of projects.

Intermedia - It is mainly a hosted MS Exchange services provider. SharePoint hosting is added as an extra. As far as I know, only document management features are allowed, and only 50 MB storage space is provided for SharePoint. For the entire feature set and additional space, add on “SharePoint” packages need to be purchased. A set up cost is also involved at most stages. Our main reaction is: pricey!!