I've been demonstrating SharePoint a lot recently and it's got me thinking about the differences between MOSS and WSS. Windows SharePoint Services has come a long way since version 2.0, but the jump in functionality between 2 and 3 should have gotten a couple more version numbers, in my opinion. It's like moving from Office 2000 directly to 2007. There's so much more there, and it's all free. Well, "free-ish". You still need to have a Windows 2003 server, as well as Active Directory if you really want to make it useful.
I've been pushing my company to develop a sharepoint business offering. We have lots of small and midsize customers who could benefit from the collaboration tools, workflow, and communication capabilities. For a small group of people, WSS is a perfect fit. If there is no immediate need to scale, WSS is my first choice for more customers. Even if it is a smaller group inside of a large organization.
But sales people often don't see things that way; they want to sell comprehensive solutions, so they push the full MOSS server, which is exorbitant and overkill for SMB.
I don't know how it is where you live, but SharePoint is what I call "the coolest thing you never heard of". It's simply one of those things people overlook. Or, more commonly, it's something one of the administrators reads about and decides to install, and the users completely ignore it. So I find myself explaining SharePoint an awful lot. Once people understand that it's not just a web server, and that it's free(ish), and their existing Office 2003 and 2007 products already work with it… they tend to get excited.
I have one customer that is a retail furniture store. They had a few problems they complained about:
-
There are a few Macintosh users on the network, who develop multimedia and marketing materials. Is there a way for these users to share their files with everyone else?
-
All the stores are required to post their daily/monthly totals in a way that all the other stores can see them.
-
There needs to be a way to communicate important information to all managers and salespeople, and allow them to browse past announcements.
They had mostly been using email to pass files around and spread the word. Gmail is pretty good about large attachments, but some files were over 20MB, so there were running into a barrier there.
Naturally I recommended a simple WSS site, using a Team Workspace template. I showed the customer how to import their Daily Sales spreadsheet into a custom list in Datasheet View, with column totals. I showed them how to use Document Libraries to share files and even attach metadata to them. I showed them how to use the Content Editor web part to stream the WMV files. I showed them how to use Announcements and Alerts to post price changes, recalls, and stock alerts, and notify key personnel when content had changed.
This simple solution was exactly what they needed; a perfect fit for WSS. WSS design, deployment, and customization is a great gig, if you can get it. You just need a sales staff that knows how to push it.
Here are a few things you can show your customers to get them interested in WSS:
Demo Video of the WSS Workspace
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/HA102055631033.aspx
Note: this video was apparently moved after it was published. There used to be links to it from the main SharePoint page (http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint) but they are broken. Anyway, this video is pretty good, moves quickly, and gives an excellent introduction to many of the things WSS and SharePoint can do.
WSS Demo
http://www.wssdemo.com/default.aspx
This site is a heavily customized WSS workspace. I sometimes show it to customers because it can give them an idea of what they could do, if they wanted to enhance the web experience or even create an extranet. It also has the Microsoft Sharepoint Training Kit installed, which is nice.
Sharepoint End User Training Videos
-
TraingSpot has 12 downloadable videos for End Users to come up to speed on basic concepts. There's a lot of other stuff, too: SQL Server 2005, Reporting Services, etc ($39.95)
-
Microsoft has the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training Kit, which is designed for server administrators to install on an Office SharePoint Server site to help end-users learn about Office SharePoint Server. Or you can download the Standalone version, which runs nicely from your desktop. (free)
These are just a few resources; I will post a longer list when I get a chance.
One thing that has me excited is Windows Search Server 2008 Express. It is still in beta, but it is basically a Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 installation with all the search functionality from MOSS 2007 Standard, and is free. The only limitation I have seen is in scalability. Search Server also has a supported upgrade path from WSS 3.0. Coolness!
moffitar