Socialtext 2.0 vs Microsoft Sharepoint 2007
Categories: Information Architecture, Usability, Web 2.0
Tags: collaboration, document_management, enterprise2.0, enterprise_wikis, microsoft, sharepoint, sharepoint2007, socialtext, socialtext2.0, web2.0, wikis
As you can tell from my last posts or having a look to the links I’m collecting on the right column of this blog, lately I’m working on social computing for large enterprises evaluating enterprise level tools for internal collaboration.
I’m playing with SocialText 2.0 and it seems a big leap from the first version but, you know, enterprises are complex environments where a plurality of conflicting forces act everyday. This could even mean that some perfectly appropriate solutions have to be excluded for political, technical or time-related reasons. Large vendors often have in place partnerships, discounted sales, special offers that can reduce the nominal cost of some enterprise solutions.
So if SocialText can be considered among the best new players in its field and at a reasonable cost, Microsoft Sharepoint 2007 tries to fill the gap following the web 2.0 through the introduction of wikis, blogs and rss (while of course maintaining the enterprise content and document management capabilities it already had).
A bird-eye overview of Sharepoint 2007 is provided by this CMSWire review.
Yes, Sharepoint 2007 is a much bigger tool than Socialtext 2.0 and also its costs (software, hardware, operations, etc) are different, but you could have it already in place with a lot of data into it and an internal know-how of the platform.
For an IT manager to migrate to a new, not yet integrated tool, extremely strong points are needed in this scenario. So I started searching for screencams, comparison tables and usability reviews of the new Sharepoint version:
- Information management systems Comparison Chart
- Sharepoint 2007 Screencam — Blogs, Wikis, RSS (From Robert Scoble)
- A comparison between Sharepoint 2007 server editions and SharePoint Portal Server 2003
What I don’t have is an objective evaluation of Microsoft Sharepoint 2007 from the usability and emotional point of view. Is it really easy to use, intuitive, easy to learn, funny, etc?
Why so many customers are choosing Socialtext 2.0 (and they are)? I would like to have concrete suggestions.
Any idea? Any real experience?
Update November, 28th:
- Of course, not everyone is happy with Socialtext 2.0: Socialtext 2.0: Usability vs. Usefulness (as I also wrote in my previous post on this blog).
In the same category:
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Thanks for rounding up some resources on MOSS 2007 - I’m doing some work with Sharepoint now, and the references are appreciated.
What are your experiences so far with Sharepoint 2007 or SocialText 2.0?
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Hi Joe,
how are you?
I’ve prepared a list of requirements and criteria to have a common ground on which comparing Social Text and Sharepoint. This list will be used for an external analysis on Sharepoint 2007 (on which I don’t have real experience).
On the while I’m conducting some internal experiments with SocialText 2.0. It’s quite simple and well organized while the WYSIWYG editor is still buggy and pretty limited. We will soon install SocialText 2.5.
Another interesting startup to monitor could be Blogtronix.
March 16th, 2007 at 12:34 am
When looking at alternatives to SharePoint, you might also want to consider my company’s solution, ThoughtFarmer. We get good business from failed SharePoint implementations, and we’re on a Microsoft .Net / SQL Server platform.