Decision Time: Is SharePoint In The Cloud For You?

The days of Microsoft SharePoint being only a locally installed software product are over. Microsoft's commitment to SharePoint in the cloud is evident in its massive data-center investments, its costly retrofitting of the code base to support multitenancy and access via subscription, and its emphasis on "cloud" in sales and marketing efforts. SharePoint Online's potential value is intriguing: lower costs, faster implementations, automatic upgrades, and more. The reality: Office 365/SharePoint Online are still only release two, and Microsoft usually needs three releases to get a product right. The questions you face: Will SharePoint in the cloud work for your organization? Is your organization ready to capture the benefits now? Is the proverbial release three of this Microsoft product the charm — or should you engage now? This research answers these questions using the experiences of early SharePoint Online adopters and analysis of Microsoft's product capabilities today.