CHANGING WORLD OF PUBLISHING SYSTEMS

Transcription

1 CHANGING WORLD OF PUBLISHING SYSTEMS Part 1: Overview of the Market in Finland Part 2: SharePoint vs. Drupal vs. Perttu Tolvanen Introduction & Chairman

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4 Competition in Finland: IT service providers vs. digital agencies IT service providers (integrators) Digital agencies

5 Competition in Finland: IT service providers vs. digital agencies IT service providers (integrators) Publishing Systems Digital agencies

6 Publishing Systems

7 Publishing Systems (products) Frameworks Platforms

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9 Key points: 1. Market consists of different systems: I. Frameworks for custom modification, II. Platform products (SharePoint, Drupal, etc.) and III. Productized package systems (e.g. ). 2. Publishing systems are traditionally used as common tools in internet, intranet and extranet projects, but this kind of thinking should be discarded. Different systems are made for different purposes and scenarios - and nothing does everything well!

10 SharePoint vs. Drupal vs. BATTLE OF THE GIANTS Opponents: - Perttu Tolvanen (Consultant, Sininen Meteoriitti), fights for SharePoint - Vesa Palmu (CEO, Mearra), fights for Drupal - Kalle Bäckman (Country Manager Finland, ), fights for

11 Battle schedule Warm-up Brief introductions of each opponent Battle #1: Services in Finland Companies and other organizations Support services and other help available Hosting solutions and prices Depth and scope of development experience Prices, licenses and other total costs Ecosystem Future: Cloud services etc. Battle #2: Suitability for typical scenarios Scenarios, 7 in total Conclusion

12 Microsoft SharePoint Content Management System, which is especially known as a document management system and for its group work space functions. Also called as a portal and further used as a web publishing system. Newest version 2010, previous versions 2007 and Roots of the system in the beginning of 21st century. Leading portal system according to Gartner (2010). Competitors: Oracle/IBM & LifeRay/Drupal. As an Intranet system, already somewhat of a de facto system, especially in Finland, where they have hundreds of customers.

13 Drupal Content Management System and application development platform, which is widely used especially as a social web publishing system. Development of the system begun in Functions as a platform for over half a million websites. Open Source system with tens of thousands of developers in over 200 countries. References include for example the website of the White House. Especially known for its additional modules. Exceptionally extendable system, which is built based on modules. Gained popularity in Finland especially as a web publishing tool in the recent years.

14 Web publishing system for medium and large websites. Lots of functionalities within the product, for example e-commerce functionalities, community plugins. Also personification functionalities for websites with focus on marketing. Thousands of websites around the world. Based in Sweden. The first version developed in Almost monopoly status in Sweden, more than 40% of organization websites are done on EPIServer. Strong focus on web publishing. Intranet package available, but web publishing is clearly the main scenario. Significantly strengthened its position in recent years in Finland (23 partners).

15 Services in Finland: Who are the service providers? SharePoint Elephants: Tieto, Logica, Digia, Accenture, Avanade, Capgemini, Fujitsu Specialized: Sininen Meteoriitti, Visualweb, Microsoft Workhorses: AtBusiness, Innofactor, CCC, Systems Garden, Endero Man and dog -league: Onsight Helsinki, Sulava, tens of others. Drupal Elephants: Tieto, Accenture, CapGemini Specialized: Drupro, Mearra Workhorses: Exove, Futurice, Soprano Brain Alliance, Reaktor, Cybercom, HiQ Man and dog -league: Only a few Elephants: Logica, Tieto Specialized: Solita Workhorses: Tietotalo, Endero, Sininen Meteoriitti, Avenla, Tietokoura, Cybercom NSD, Creuna, HiQ Man and dog -league: Only a few Conclusion: All three have extensive network of different talents. The ecosystem of SharePoint is the strongest, but there are not a lot of specialized providers within SharePoint s network either.

16 Services in Finland: Availability of support services SharePoint - Local support services - Microsoft Premier Support provides official global 24/7 support channel. - a small consultation unit of MS Finland provides support in architecture design and quality assurance - International giants (e.g. Accenture, Avanade) - Man and dog -league support also important - Vast Knowledge base -article collection Drupal - Local support services - International support services - Free and fee-based support - Acquia provides official Drupal support nowadays also in Europe - User groups and organizations also offer lots of internal support activity - Lots of discussions and support activity online - Local support services - Finland provides support when needed (one technical consultant) - Global support unit (24/7) relatively close (Sweden) - Official support community (forums, blogs, articles etc.) Conclusion: Support network of SharePoint is in a league of its own. Drupal and are clearly challengers, but especially Drupal catches up fast.

17 Services in Finland: Hosting SharePoint /month - From standard hosting all the way up to specialized services - Also cloud solutions (such as Office 365) - Minimum package for large organizations (on-premises) usually two servers (SP+SQL), but often the package consists of five (5) servers. Drupal /month - From standard hosting all the way up to specialized services - Also cloud solutions (such as productized Drupal Gardens - package) - Acquia provides also an advanced cloud hosting model /month - Everweb hosting is used very often - hosting service provided by the mother of - Cloud solution also coming - Typically one front-end server. In vaster services, two front-end servers with load balancing. Conclusion: SharePoint and Drupal both require special skills and knowledge in terms of server solutions and thus creating a possible problem especially in larger projects. From the point of view of the customer, is the most advanced in the ease of hosting services and in productizing them. Drupal is a strong second.

18 Services in Finland: Developers SharePoint - In Finland 500+ (and another 500 in different roles) - Globally Great need of experienced developers at the moment - Skill levels of the developers vary greatly (developers with poor knowledge of ready-made functionalities are a problem) - Ecosystem is constantly evolving and in need of constant monitoring - High learning curve even for.net-developers Drupal - In Finland Globally Great need of experienced developers at the moment - Skill levels of the developers vary greatly (hackers are a problem) - Ecosystem is constantly evolving and in need of constant monitoring - High learning curve even for an experienced php-developer - In Finland 100+ developers (and another 100+ in different roles) - Globally Low learning curve: An experienced.net-developer absorbs the system in days Conclusion: SharePoint and Drupal both require experienced developers and the need of these is great. The need raises the prices and brings forth many inexperienced workers, which in turn might cause problems for the project. The low learning curve of makes it desirable for.net-developers in Finland.

19 Prices SharePoint - Building a website costs: (work) - Licenses: (in more demanding web services easily over ) - Hosting usually: / month - Maintenance costs: / month - Note: SharePoint s pricing model for intranets is completely different and often very compatible with free products due to MS s licensing packages. Drupal - Building a website costs: (work) - Licenses: 0 - Hosting usually: / month - Maintenance costs: / month - Note: Drupal is also used for multiple amateur projects and minor scale development, but this is mainly due to the freeness of the software, not due to Drupal s suitability for minor projects. - Building a website as a project costs: (work) - Licenses for the publishing system are (In 2 front-end server model around ). In addition, voluntary 20% yearly maintenance cost of the license. - Hosting usually: / month (EPi s own) - Maintenance costs: / month Conclusion: When comparing typical website projects, SharePoint clearly is the most expensive one. Drupal is desirable in its freeness but not superior even in medium-sized projects due to the fact that is further productized and thus making the total work cost even significantly lower than with Drupal.

20 Ecosystem SharePoint - Strong partner network both globally and in Finland (62 partners in Finland) - Partner network is well taken care of by Microsoft - Training and support is extensively available for the developers of the partners - Lots of training for customers (e.g. Sovelto, Tieturi) - There are lots of extremely strong third party products - Compatibility with SharePoint has become nearly an obligatory element in serious information system products Drupal developers in large conferences regularly - Lots of weekly events around the world - No one single coordinating company - Association activity - Over 8000 additional modules available online - Extensions, integration plugins, variety of support services - Lots of training available - Over 500 partners in 35 countries - 23 partners in Finland - Support and training available for partners - EPiMore partnership program: over 130 approved plugins - Over members in World Community Conclusion: In ecosystems, SharePoint is superior when it comes to service level and variety - but this quality also has its cost. Drupal ecosystem is also strong - although very different - and it makes it easier to test, try out and develop different elements independently for example together with one s own development team.

21 Future: Cloud services and other flexible ways of acquirement SharePoint - Office 365 provides a whole package for small and medium-sized businesses - One aspect is websites, but this entity is not public yet (however, according to Microsoft, it s coming) - MS s cloud services are highly advanced and in the future also extranets might often be found on the edge of this cloud - Future is so far very unclear and the comparison thus difficult. Drupal - Drupal Gardens provides extremely cost-efficient Drupal version package, which is maintained within the cloud. - Drupal Gardens is solely focused on using Drupal as a web publishing system. - As a web publishing tool, the future on the edge of the cloud appears to be strong. - Cloud service coming. On the other hand, the current centralized hosting model is quite similar from the customers point of view. Conclusion: MS s cloud services are focused on information tools and intranet. Drupal is focused only on websites. Thus, these two are not as comparable at the moment, but it is clear that SharePoint and Drupal intend to attack each other also in clouds. s cloud services are still just sales pitches.

22 Score so far: SharePoint Drupal

23 Skenaariot

24 Scenarios 1. Communicative websites 2. Vast, multilingual website entities 3. E-Commerce 4. Customer service channels (B2C extranets) 5. Cooperative partner channels (B2B extranets) 6. Community services, varied Facebook-clones 7. Intranets These scenarios are some of the most typical usages of web publishing systems. It should be noted that SharePoint and Drupal are suitable for many other scenarios as well.

25 Brochureware, simple one way publishing SharePoint - Suitable mostly when intranet has been done with SharePoint and the customer wants to publish lots of different content from the intranet on the website - License costs are significant in relation to project costs in projects under Starting level in content management can be high in some functionalities (e.g. managing page hierarchy) Drupal - Drupal Gardens is practically designed for this. - Drupal is not on-premise quite made for these purposes. - There are ready-made themes, but deviating from these rapidly increases the work load. - Maintenance user interfaces in parts engineer-like - Some digital agencies have packaged Drupal into becoming their version of a publishing system. - Extremely low starting level (demo-templates made for this) - Extensive ready-made functionalities such as personification - Quality multilingual functionalities Conclusion: Drupal and SharePoint are not designed to be an agile platform for communicative websites. on the other hand is designed especially for these purposes. Drupal Gardens, however, begins to challenge, but has not acquired a solid status yet.

26 Large, multilingual websites SharePoint - Suitable mostly when intranet has been done with SharePoint and the customer wants to publish lots of different content from the intranet on the website - Also if extranet is very complex and done with SharePoint, it might be reasonable to do the public website with SharePoint as well - Weak functionalities for managing multilingualism - Content permission control is difficult from the point of view of brand management Drupal - Cost-efficient choice especially for vast projects, which would either way require lots of customization (in this case more heavy web publishing tools might be in the way ) - No out-of-the-box functionalities for managing vast multi-site entities or language versions - Document management often needs to be reinforced with Alfresco - Managing multilingualism, multisite management options - License model and server architecture scalable in a costefficient way - Open APIs for developers - Not an actual customization platform, so the functionalities need to be very familiar - No enterprise level search engine, no advanced document management functionalities Conclusion: Drupal and are primary choices for a platform of vast, complex and demanding web services. They are, however, very different from each other on the outset. Drupal is recommended when lots of customization is required. should, on the other hand, be chosen when one wants to make use of its multiple ready-made functionalities.

27 E-Commerce (Real e-commerce, not just shopping carts) SharePoint - Does not provide anything for e-commerce as such - Separate Commerce Server product is highly suitable for very heavy implementations (over ) Drupal - Extremely suitable for very vast and customized e-commerce implementations (over ) - Drupal is the rising star for heavy web service implementations especially because it combines CMS functionality, customization and e-commerce - Separate Commerce product which works well with the publishing functionalities of - Very suitable and cost-efficient for setting up medium-sized online stores (projects under ) Conclusion: Only provides out-of-the-box solutions for e-commerce. Drupal has become excellent for extremely demanding e-commerce and it will most likely continue to be a success story in that area. In Finland, most e-commerce implementations are however closer to the project level of.

28 B2C extranet, customer service channels SharePoint - Microsoft s security and access control products complement the whole package - Integration can be an asset in Microsoft environment - Can be too expensive or arduous as a customization platform Drupal - Excellent as a platform for special applications. - If necessary, also some of the additional modules can be put to use - Not many ready-made integration plugins available - Not comparable with SharePoint or Drupal as a customization platform Conclusion: Customer service extranets are usually very customer-specific and they contain lots of special applications. Here the strengths of Drupal are highlighted. The strengths of SharePoint are emphasized mainly when the customer already has lots of Microsoft products.

29 B2B extranets, group work spaces & special applications SharePoint - Strong group work spaces and document management - Strong permission control functionalities - Microsoft s security and access control products compliments the whole package - Can be too arduous as a customization platform Drupal - Good permission control functionalities - Customization and application development potentially lighter than with SharePoint - In practice, often demands an access control product of a third party - Only basic functionalities for file sharing - Does not demand additional licenses or servers - Complex and demanding extranets are very rarely s forte Conclusion: SharePoint is practically the only one of these products which really aims at being a platform for B2B extranets and provides at least some ready-made functionalities. The rest of the Microsoft products are a strength of SharePoint. A strength of Drupal is potentially lighter and cheaper customization, but otherwise there are only a few benefits of using Drupal in this case.

30 Community sites, varied Facebook-clones SharePoint - Strong group work spaces and document management - MySite provides profile pages - Not designed for an open community websites at all - Requires a lot of customization and third party plugins - No moderation functionalities Drupal - One of the most ideal usages of Drupal - Modules have lots of elements already incorporated - Customization is fast - Quality end user experience requires a lot of work and effort with details - even with Drupal - Relate+ provides a product-driven solution for setting up a community - Fast to try out and put to use - Integrates well with the publishing functionalities of - Moderation functionalities incorporated - Customization is limited Conclusion: Drupal is the most popular solution for implementing community services especially because they often require customization. provides a product-driven solution, which might be faster and more cost-efficient to start up. The module selection of Drupal are, however, superior in this sector.

31 Intranet SharePoint - Document management and group work spaces undisputed strengths - Search, MySite, Office compatibility - Huge amount of ready-made extensions for intranet integrations - Enterprise -systems provide nowadays SharePoint-plugins almost without exception and this strengthens SharePoint s position as a platform for intranets Drupal - Social functionalities and group work solutions - Easily integrated - Lots of functionalities available - Difficult to integrate with MS Office - Requires Alfresco for complex document management and work flows - Social intranet package which is based on community extension - Ready-made functionalities of in use - MS Office integration OK, even an integration plugin for SharePoint (e.g. document transfer) - No enterprise level search engine in the package - Customization is limited in intranet packages Conclusion: During the recent years, SharePoint has become the de facto standard within the field of intranets in many respects. Its status is further strengthened by different intranet packages provided by other service providers, and there are lots of these going around even in Finland. In addition, compared to others, the ecosystem of the extensions is superior in SharePoint world in intranet sector.

32 Conclusion SharePoint - B2B extranets, group work spaces and special applications - Intranets, document management - Strong in many areas when it comes to Microsoft world Drupal - Vast, complex and diverse web service entities - B2C extranets, customer service channels - Community services, varied Facebook -clones - Communicative websites - Vast, complex and diverse web service entities - E-commerce Conclusion: SharePoint is especially strong in B2B service implementations and intranets. Drupal excels in vast and complex web service implementations especially when customization is required. is at is best in implementing communicative websites and e-commerce - especially when the budget is limited and customer wants to utilize lots of ready-made functionalities.

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