Comments on: Red Hat, Alfresco Attack Microsoft SharePoint

By: sgtrock

sgtrock — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:07:10 +0000

VAR Guy -

Thanks for the mention.

The data for behind the TCO study that you mention can be found in a whitepaper on the Alfresco site, http://www.alfresco.com/products/whitepapers.

Nancy Garrity
Alfresco Community Manager

Sigh. When are vendors going to learn that insisting upon a registration before showing me a whitepaper pretty much guarantees that I won’t bother to read it?

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:38:36 +0000

Josh: The VAR Guy is slammed with a few deadlines but will check out Plone in the next few days. Thanks for bringing a new point of view to this conversation.

By: Josh in Rural Ohio

Josh in Rural Ohio — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:53:15 +0000

Var Guy,

Another formidable competitor to SharePoint is Plone. A while back I did an informal comparison of Plone vs. SharePoint vs. Alfresco. At that time, Plone was far more like SharePoint than Alfresco was… and, being Python, easier to develop for. I am not sure if Plone is as scalable as SharePoint… Zope is not known for its performance.

Cheers,
-Josh

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:37:39 +0000

Stephanie: The VAR Guy will look into that.

Mark: Your point of view certainly has merit. But The VAR Guy suspects a lot of SharePoint VARs and customers believe SharePoint delivers positive ROI.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:22:36 +0000

>From 2001 to 2008, Microsoft sold 100 million SharePoint licenses, and SharePoint now represents at least a $1 billion business for Microsoft, according to InformationWeek. As of 2008, Microsoft had 2,250 certifed SharePoint integration partners, InformationWeek added.

>Pretty darn impressive.

It is of course impressive only from one particular point of view.

From a different point of view, but nevertheless still a business point of view, that amount spent on Sharepoint licenses actually represents a $1 billion avoidable business cost, and consequent lost investment opportunity through not having managed to avoid it.

By: Stephane Croisier

Stephane Croisier — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:07:16 +0000

It would be interesting to get your opinion on the announced strong partnership between JBoss and the Exo Platform (and the contribution/merge of theit Portal + Content Repository layers) and Alfresco. Both are now trying to become some kind of OSS SharePoint killers. How will JBoss manage such a dual hat?

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:37:53 +0000

Nancy: The VAR Guy will be sure to give it a look. Thanks for the link. And please keep our resident blogger posted as Alfresco continues to build out its partner community.

By: Nancy Garrity

Nancy Garrity — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:04:47 +0000

VAR Guy -

Thanks for the mention.

The data for behind the TCO study that you mention can be found in a whitepaper on the Alfresco site, http://www.alfresco.com/products/whitepapers.

Nancy Garrity
Alfresco Community Manager

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:01:30 +0000

An update from The VAR Guy. In a somewhat related move, Zoho also is seeking to cash in on the SharePoint craze. The SaaS software specialist has introduced a Zoho SharePoint ad-on that allows users to:

1. Create New Documents/Spreadsheets/Presentations on SharePoint using Zoho Apps
2. View & Edit existing documents within SharePoint using Zoho Apps and save changes back to SharePoint
3. Collaboratively work on documents in real-time

Now, for the Zoho twist: All of that can be done without needing Microsoft Office. Zoho claims users gain “the advantages of online apps to SharePoint” while keeping “their data behind their firewall and still take advantage of online apps.”

Hmmm. Seems like everyone seems dollar signs when they look at SharePoint these days…