SharePoint’s biggest competitor
SharePoint’s biggest competitor is its own product sibling—the Microsoft Office Suite.
Office’s success means there is no real need for SharePoint.
Yes, SharePoint can provide added benefits, but today’s office can run without it. Take away Outlook, Excel or Word, however, and what happens? Work grinds to a halt.
Take away SharePoint (but leave the other Office products), and people cope. They go back to the old way of doing things, saving their file on local drives or servers.
While Microsoft lists SharePoint Server as one of its Office products, it is not one of the base desktop products that most people recognise as the Microsoft Office suite.
Nowadays most people are familiar with email, word processors and spreadsheets. They learn about them at school. They know what each product does, and how. They are basic must-have tools to get by in today’s business and schools.
Try telling someone how important SharePoint is. What do you say? “It helps you collaborate with your team members.”
They say, “I collaborate anyway. We exchange emails all the time.”
You say, “Well, what about file sharing?”
They counter with, “I can use Windows Explorer to share files, and at least they’re still accessible when SharePoint is down.”
Ouch. Because you know everyone remembers the times SharePoint goes down and their documents are inaccessible.
Anything you say can be done via SharePoint can also be done in another Office program. Issue lists—you can do that in a spreadsheet. Tasks—you can do that in Outlook, if it’s your personal list, or a spreadsheet if it’s a group list. It seems you can’t win.
The thing is, these people are right. Excel spreadsheets and Outlook mail are good tools. Why bother with SharePoint when you already have something adequate for the job?