Microsoft has crafted the latest edition of its Web Content Management platform to make it more appealing as a solution for building public websites. SharePoint has long been the go-to platform for intranets and document management solutions for small to large businesses.  But now SharePoint 2013 is poised to make dramatic inroads as a WCM for internet sites. So What Makes SharePoint 2013 Good for Web Sites?{"id":200,"date":"2013-01-01T16:44:42","date_gmt":"2013-01-01T21:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.webcritik.com\/?p=75"},"modified":"2013-01-01T16:44:42","modified_gmt":"2013-01-01T21:44:42","slug":"prediction-for-2013-an-explosion-of-sharepoint-internet-sitesand-a-grain-of-salt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.suddenmischief.com\/site\/2013\/01\/web-design\/prediction-for-2013-an-explosion-of-sharepoint-internet-sitesand-a-grain-of-salt\/","title":{"rendered":"Prediction for 2013: An Explosion of SharePoint Internet Sites\u2026and a Grain of Salt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Originally published in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmswire.com\/cms\/customer-experience\/prediction-2013-an-explosion-of-sharepoint-internet-sites-and-a-grain-of-salt-018846.php\" target=\"_blank\">CMSWire<\/a>, January 3, 2013<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Microsoft has crafted the latest edition of its Web Content Management platform to make it more appealing as a solution for building public websites. SharePoint has long been the go-to platform for intranets and document management solutions for small to large businesses.\u00a0 But now SharePoint 2013 is poised to make dramatic inroads as a WCM for internet sites.<\/p>\n<h2>So What Makes SharePoint 2013 Good for Web Sites?<\/h2>\n<p>Microsoft has significantly lowered the barrier to entry for designers into SharePoint projects.<\/p>\n<p>The most profound change in SharePoint 2013 is the untethering of Master Pages and Layouts from SharePoint Designer, and the introduction of \u201cDesign Manager.\u201d\u00a0 Until now, the de facto requirement for SharePoint developers to be involved in implementing web design was stifling.\u00a0 But now designers can build robust HTML prototypes, complete with CSS and JavaScript, and convert them directly into Master Pages \u2013 no developers required.\u00a0 Furthermore, the \u201cSnippets Gallery\u201d will allow designers to know what SharePoint generated markup will look like, allowing them to plan for it in their prototypes.\u00a0 This clear separation of responsibilities between designers and developers will reduce a lot of development friction and smooth the way for exciting, new, and creative looks to SharePoint sites.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s enough to create a rapid increase in the adoption of the SharePoint platform by developers and designers alike but, of course, that\u2019s not all.\u00a0 SharePoint 2013 also brings with it a variety of other improvements that will accelerate designing and developing quality internet sites:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>SEO Friendly URLs<\/li>\n<li>Improved default JS\/CSS\/HTML structure<\/li>\n<li>Device channels<\/li>\n<li>A search that just\u00a0<em>works<\/em>.\u00a0 Formerly a separate component (FAST search), SharePoint Search is an enterprise quality engine that\u2019s now fully integrated and configured to hit the ground running<\/li>\n<li>SharePoint Online for Office 365, aka SharePoint Online (the SharePoint service in the cloud does not yet have feature parity with on-premises SharePoint 2013, but Microsoft has promised a rapid catch-up)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Most of these improvements were \u201cnice to haves\u201d for successful intranets, but are \u201cmust haves\u201d for public-facing web<strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>sites.\u00a0 Essentially, SharePoint 2013 is catching up to other WCM platforms that have had similar functionality for years.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, Microsoft already has a launching platform in many businesses via SharePoint intranets (so development and administration will be familiar) and the Office suite (which enjoys tight integration with SharePoint 2013).\u00a0 SharePoint 2013 integrates also well with Microsoft\u2019s other line of business and point solutions (CRM, Dynamics, etc.) so Microsoft is in a great position to take advantage of those existing software relationships to push more internet sites.<\/p>\n<p>Now for the grain of salt\u2026<\/p>\n<h2>Contribution Experiences Still Leave Much to be Desired<\/h2>\n<p>While these improvements represent a great leap forward for the platform, they won\u2019t translate into long term success as an internet WCM without substantial improvements to the\u00a0<strong>contributor experience<\/strong>.\u00a0 Content contributors don\u2019t care whether the master page is easy to edit, nor do they care about any of the other aids to developer productivity.\u00a0 They care about getting content onto a page and published.\u00a0 And in this regard SharePoint 2013 offers little improvement.<\/p>\n<p>For now, while the contribution experience issues are not insurmountable, they tend to create a lot of friction in both day-to-day contribution experiences and contributor training.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some top of mind examples\u2026<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>While Microsoft has added drag and drop for images the document and asset libraries, it hasn\u2019t been implemented in other contribution contexts (once I can drag an image into an HTML Text area, I\u2019ll be a happier man!)<\/li>\n<li>The Web Part administration panel is still terrible!\u00a0 It\u2019s slow to load, confusing, frequently breaks layouts, and it\u2019s impossible to control what configuration settings are accessible.\u00a0 Configuration properties for nearly everything else have moved to the ribbon \u2013 why not web parts?<\/li>\n<li>A contributor can\u2019t create put a Contacts List Web Part on a page without first creating a Contacts List Library \u2013 a task no contributor should be asked to do.<\/li>\n<li>The entire business of creating pages and sites \u2013 and what to do if you chose the wrong one \u2013 makes training contributors to do anything but edit existing pages a nightmare.\u00a0 (Microsoft is shilling for the no-sites solution by implementing navigation by taxonomy, but navigation paradigms aren\u2019t going to change overnight, and automatic hierarchical navigation is unlikely to be made irrelevant anytime soon.)<\/li>\n<li>Still no version control for Web Parts.\u00a0 I might be in the minority on this one, and I acknowledge that there is no simple solution.\u00a0 However, for public-facing websites with financial or legal accountability, not being able to use Web Parts severely hinders the flexibility of a SharePoint implementation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Sure, the new Content by Search Web Part will make it simpler to reuse content in smart and sophisticated ways \u2013 a definite win for contributors \u2013 but is that\u00a0<em>it<\/em>?\u00a0 No other concessions to contributors?<\/p>\n<h2>So\u2026Is SharePoint Getting Less Expensive for Public Sites or Isn\u2019t It?<\/h2>\n<p>(Ok, maybe there\u2019s two grains of salt.)<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s clear that Microsoft wants us to believe that some of the more prohibitive facets of SharePoint costs will go away with 2013.\u00a0 There are two ways they\u2019ve tried to address it \u2013 first, by providing a cloud option and, second, by changing the on-premises license structure.<\/p>\n<p>SharePoint Online is still a mixed bag. It\u2019s too early to provide confident guidance to customers \u2013 especially those building large or complex sites \u2013 as to whether the cloud-based solution is advisable. Despite Microsoft\u2019s stated\u00a0<em>desire<\/em>\u00a0to achieve feature parity with the on-premises version of SharePoint 2013, there\u2019s been no timeline provided for bringing critical new features to the cloud.\u00a0 The most glaring current example is the Content by Search Web Part, which is integral to SharePoint 2013 but isn\u2019t available in SharePoint Online yet.\u00a0 This puts implementation professionals who need to make architecture recommendations in a tough spot.<\/p>\n<p>The big news in\u00a0<em>on-premises<\/em>\u00a0licensing in SharePoint 2013 is that all licensing includes rights to use it for public Internet sites. This was previously a very costly add-on.\u00a0 But before getting too excited\u2026the list price for SharePoint 2013 has been increased by an average of 38% over the 2010 version.\u00a0 In other words, depending on your current licensing situation and needs, the costs may decrease\u00a0<em>or increase<\/em>. (At least one scenario looks clear:\u00a0 customers who have already made SharePoint license investments with Software Assurance appear to be in line to save some major bucks.)<\/p>\n<h2>In Summary\u2026<\/h2>\n<p>Taking into account all of the above, there\u2019s a strong likelihood that there will be huge increase in the number of public web sites build on SharePoint 2013 over the coming 12 months. The magnitude of the increase depends a great deal on how quickly Microsoft can achieve SharePoint Online parity with its on-premises counterpart. On the cost front, the combination of the new licensing model and cloud options should spur substantial new investment in even more SharePoint internet sites.<\/p>\n<p>That said, Microsoft has a lot more work to do if they want customers to\u00a0<em>stay<\/em>. The next iteration of SharePoint is going to need some dramatic improvements to the contributor experience if SharePoint truly wants to stay competitive as a WCM for public internet sites.\u00a0 Until then, it\u2019ll be up to competent development partners to continue layering custom WCM improvements on top of SharePoint \u2013 and we\u2019ll all keep our fingers crossed that Microsoft is listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,5],"tags":[17,19,20],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ux","category-web-design","tag-cms","tag-intranets","tag-sharepoint"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suddenmischief.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suddenmischief.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suddenmischief.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suddenmischief.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suddenmischief.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.suddenmischief.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suddenmischief.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suddenmischief.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suddenmischief.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}