Office 365: Version Two Of SharePoint In The Cloud

February 17th, 2012

Rob Koplowitz

John Rymer

With contributors:

Jeffrey Hammond , Joe Dang

Summary

There's an old adage that says it takes Microsoft three times to get it right. Its commitment to SharePoint in the cloud is clearly evident in its investment in data centers, a costly retrofitting of the code base to multitenancy, and a go-to-market strategy that emphasizes the cloud in both sales and marketing. The value proposition is intriguing: potentially lower costs, faster implementation, automatic upgrades, and more. Here's the reality: Office 365 makes a SharePoint cloud deployment more viable, but it's still only version two. Success will require tolerance to issues, realistic expectations, and a very strong deployment strategy.

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