How do you justify the cost of SharePoint to your customers when they are considering other solutions? For example, some may want to use a specific product that is specific to their needs…such as Box or some other cloud storage solution. We all know that Box doesn’t hold a candle to SharePoint, but it IS way cheaper.
How do you justify the cost?
SharePoint leads the collaboration and community software world. The prices it is available in is worth the flexibility and wide range of functionality it offers. I myself use a cheap SharePoint hosting services with http://www.apps4rent.com/sharepoint-hosting.html
The cost of SharePoint can be high but the security and reliability it offers is incomparable with any other competitor tool. Morever, small and mid-size companies can use a free SharePoint site from http://www.cloudappsportal.com if price bothers them but with no compromise on the best collaborative features.
Both are very good arguments. I’ve had the conversation with many customers and they have a hard time getting past the grand total. Even with an EA in place, some customers are still spending millions just on licensing. That’s a big frog to swallow!
SharePoint has traditionally been a jack of all trades and master of none.
That has changed since 2010 and its a jack of all trades, master of many.
They may have an immediate specific need e.g. document management but they WILL want other functionality in the future. SharePoint can meet most future requirements on a single platform WITHOUT creating islands of data
Long term supportability and ease of integration into existing environments
9/10, enterprise environments already have MS office and Windows clients/servers in use, there’s no easier sale of SP features and capabilities than when you can point out the simplicity of integration into existing environments.
Additionally, you also have the luxury of maintaining your single point of administration and support with Microsoft. There’s nothing more annoying than dealing with vendor Ping-Pong when working to resolve serious issues across platforms.
But even foundation is free. I’ve deployed a number of WSS & foundation farms over the last 6 years and 90% have all come back to upgrade at some point.
