Sharepoint vs. ASP.NET

[BikeJunkie]

A Sharepoint-evangelist firm has managed to eek themselves into an "auditing" situation with one of my clients. In other words, they're auditing a couple ASP.NET apps in hopes of convincing the business that they need to be hired to convert everything over to glorious Sharepoint.

None of the apps are document-rich. Basic document management is all that's needed, and it's already been implemented quite well in standard ASP.NET.

I have been tasked by the IT Director to squash this little bug before it gains any steam.

I've already collected a lot of my own thoughts and research, but I'm just curious what folks' experience around here has been. I know Sharepoint has its place and I'm not dissing it in the least, but these apps are just little CRUD apps that already have established foundations.

 

[Savatar]

If the existing system serves its purpose and isn't giving you any major problems, then that alone should be quite telling. Switching users from one system to another almost always slows them down and frustrate some who may not be as eager to learn or switch from what they've been doing. SharePoint will definitely offer a lot more functionality, so you just have to look through and see if it might have any real benefits for the client's org/teams, or if it's just perceived benefits or things that are nice to have but not required. I don't think you'd be able to stop them from the audit (that'd be silly), but you can definitely start getting a list of the benefits of using the existing solution - acknowledging both its strengths and weaknesses. I hope this helps?

In the end, just lay out the pros and cons, and let the client make the decision. They're the people who need to make the decision - so just make sure they're as informed as possible.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I wasn't that enthusiastic about (an older version of) Sharepoint when we were using it for shared files collaboration, for us the added overhead of setup (accounts, projects/folders) wasn't worth the effort just to get document versioning.

If your customer would benefit from the unified portal for multiple projects and can use the versioning then maybe this really would be an improvement. It might also be a chance to move the storage / server to MS' Azure.

So do consider the pros, not just the cons.

 

[KB]

They want you to do this because then you will be calling them for support for the rest of your lives. We have used sharepoint for a long time and I now forbid any custom code in it. We have been burned twice by sharepoint as when we go to upgrade to the new version of sharepoint, our custom WebParts no longer work and must be rewritten or upgraded. Sharepoint also adds a bit of overhead to your app. The other issue I have with it, is that if I decide to put my app out onto the public internet, the license fees for this are expensive.
Sharepoint has its place. It does document workflow very well, and it allows power users to setup their own sites for collaberation. Beyond that I would stick with stand-alone apps.

 

[debian0001]

SharePoint is good if you set it up right. Don't cheap out on doing a frontend / app, and backend DB. Split it out with load balancing on the frontends, app layer, and a cluster SQL and it runs pretty good. But it costs money too... I would look for alternatives maybe before going to SharePoint.

I'm a system admin that had to help setup SharePoint and fix it when the consultants that the company picked fucked it all up.