So what version of SharePoint do you choose?  There are many factors to take into consideration – but the one question should always be :

What are you trying to achieve / manage in your business?

It is not about the technology.  It’s about understanding what business challenges you are trying to resolve.  Is there a process you want to make more efficient?  Do you need to create a central repository of documents that everyone can access?  Do you need audit capabilities on changes to documents?  Do you need to streamline your project management procedures?  Do you need to centralise templates so everyone works in the same way?

You need to work backwards on what it is you need to report on.

We can help you with all of this.

This will be your first consideration.  You will need specialised guidance here as there are technical and legal implications depending on what country you live in.  While there are independent hosting companies, we are referring to Office 365 / SharePoint Online only.  This is an extremely condensed list and you may have many more of your own considerations.

 

On Premise Pros

• Full control over your environment.
• Add any third party software to extend your environment.
• Scale out to any size.
• Your data is totally private.

On Premise Cons

• Hardware and software is expensive.
• Must maintain those environments monthly or threaten the whole platform.

 

Cloud Pros

• Instant access from anywhere in the world.
• Subscribe to services that you need on demand.
• No hardware to maintain.
• App store to buy endless apps to extend the platform.

Cloud Cons

• No control over the environment – you will be on the cutting edge at all times with functionality changes made without notifying you or giving you the option to reject them.
• You may experience some challenges using third party software if they aren’t specifically designed for hosted SharePoint as you won’t have access to the administration panel to install them.
• Your data is exposed to the hosting company at all times.