Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Sushi, SharePoint and Snail Mail

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that the SharePoint site can be accessed externally. Not every computer has remote desktop. So basically, you have a giant Dropbox with SharePoint being to download and edit files offsite. Furthermore, you can integrate with Office Web Apps which would let you use Microsoft Word, Excel, etc. through the browser even if the computer you're on doesn't have these programs. You can have the full power of MS Office and all of your files through the web browser. Contacts, calendars, etc. all available through the web browser.

To reinforce what Bert said, it's quite simple to use. Setting up a shared folder with all the permissions and then adding it to every computer in the office takes time and is a bit above the skill set of your average user. Sure you could add everyone to the permissions, but then anyone can read your files easily. Also, with P2P, if you do use password protected file sharing, you have to have either a dedicated account for filesharing or setup everyone's user accounts on one computer with their passwords. It gets messy. Then again, this can't be setup without a domain. It's much easier to navigate and manage than a traditional file share setup.

To be honest, SharePoint is definitely geared towards larger companies where collaboration can be difficult. I can understand why it's hard to see the benefits in a small office. Probably easier to just tell 2 staff members an announcement versus posting it on SharePoint. You can see the increasing benefit when you add more and more people to the mix. But the benefits are there regardless of the size of your corporation. I'm sure you all have developed similar systems using various pieces of software that work well for you.