The Mystery of Why People Use SharePoint

I had to laugh when I read this blog post from the Calgary Herald: Is SharePoint a pain point? Maybe it’s time to ditch it. They used the image below (slightly modified here) to distance themselves from the "righteous" supporters of SharePoint.



Of course SharePoint isn't perfect, but if you require some features that SharePoint provides, then you should run a pilot and try it out; base your decision on your actual use cases. This quote from a white paper that I co-wrote with Colin Spence (he wrote this particular text) sums it up nicely:

“If end users already know how to use SharePoint and have received training on the key tools provided by SharePoint the organization can be more ambitious in the implementation. On the other hand if end users are completely unfamiliar with SharePoint and in general not open to change and not willing to take training, IT should carefully control the complexity of the SharePoint configuration. Projects can be seen as “failures” if a few important end users complain that the SharePoint solution is ‘too complicated,’ or ‘too time consuming.’”

It's a classic case of people believing that there is a perfect system out there and all they need to do is pick the right one. It's simply not reality.