Each time I chat with a VAR or solutions provider, the topic of Microsoft SharePoint seems to pop into the conversation. Channel players are having great success deploying SharePoint for their customers. It begs the question: Will SharePoint emerge as a managed service as well? I believe so, but what’s your take?
In case you haven’t worked with SharePoint, the software allows users to collaborate on content, easily find documents, etc.
SharePoint deployments are humming along quickly, according to a recent report from Forrester Research covering Office 2007 and Windows Vista Migrations. (All About Microsoft, a blog from Mary Jo Foley, offers more on the Forrester report.)
Companies like SharePointHosting.com, Own Web Now Corp. and AIS Network Corp. have been quick to offer SharePoint as a hosted service — but I don’t have a feel yet for the potential profit margins SharePoint can generate.
Still, it’s a safe bet that more MSPs will pile into the SharePoint market as Microsoft polishes its own Online Services strategy, which the company announced on March 3.
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Tags: Managed Service Provider | Managed Services | Microsoft | Microsoft Online Services | SharePoint | SharePointHosting.com
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We have been wrestling with this question internally as well. It appears some in the market are adding this as a component of hosted Exchange offerings. We are still not sure what the revenue potential truly is for this as a service vs. the cost of support. The jury is still out.
Brian: The jury may still be out in terms of ROI, but the overall vote from the channel seems to be “go with SharePoint.” I know quite a few managed service providers and VARs that speak highly of their SharePoint businesses.
While I have a healthy skepticism about other MSFT channel pushes (Vista, etc.), SharePoint seems to be a winner for partners.
Please let us know what you ultimately decide. I’m sure our readers would like to hear about your experiences, both pro and con. Thanks.
Why does Sharepoint not get the traction in the MSP offering it deserves. Our company mission is to use technology to improve our clients business processes and ultimately their bottom line. What better tool to do this for the general processes that are common to all businessess than with than Sharepoint…and to top it off WSS 3.0 is FREE!
Its time we look into incorporating an intranet offering into our value proposition….it seems like it would automatically differentiate us based on the fact that this great blog has gotten no love for over a year……
Tony: I’m hearing from more and more MSPs that (A) leverage SharePoint internally and (B) promote SharePoint to customers. I don’t want to put words in anyone’s month but I believe a few of the key MSP/VAR peer group organizations use SharePoint to help coordinate group activities.
-jp
I agree with Tony- there’s definitely an opportunity for a managed services offering built around the front side of SharePoint. My company, Azaleos, offers managed services for the back-end of SharePoint. Our service is built around best practices for deployment and governance at the server level- basically, we build the baseball field and the umpires and then let the customers play ball. While our services keep the lights on the the grass trimmed, we’ve found that customers need someone to make sure they’re still touching all of the bases as their company’s reliance on SharePoint grows. I could see a managed service built around front-end development and remediation, semi-regular healthchecks and internal “how-to-use” training.
Rick: I must concede. I’m not sure how MSPs and VARs can continually “profit” from SharePoint. But there’s no doubt SharePoint remains a massive (growing) market opportunity. Keep us posted as Azaleos makes more SharePoint moves.
We’re also watching a range of companies (Box.net, Alfresco, etc.) that strive to offer SharePoint alternatives.
-jp