Plenty of organizations aren’t quite ready to move to the cloud, but they may have very good business reasons for staying put. For many, staying on-premises makes sense as a SharePoint strategy — at least in the near-term. There are plenty of good reasons for organizations to continue using the on-premises version of SharePoint 2013, as well as a few potential drawbacks to keep an eye out for further down the road.
Some companies may have to abide by stringent security and compliance regulations that require keeping their data in an on-premises environment. Others are simply more comfortable using an on-premises environment than the cloud-based version. Plus, it’s quite costly to implement SharePoint 2013 on-premises, and no doubt hard to leave this investment behind if the system still works as needed.
If your SharePoint strategy is to continue with the on-premises version for the next few years, a hybrid cloud approach may be a good bet. The reality is that not everyone is going to move to the cloud-based Office 365, and even though Microsoft would like to corner the market on these core Office functionalities, other new platforms are coming out, and people are developing their own strategies for best-of-breed IT environments. There are a lot of other solutions able to meet similar requirements, and they probably do not cost as much or require such sophisticated expertise as SharePoint 2013 on-premises.
But if you want to grow and evolve along with Microsoft’s technology, you’ll have to consider moving at least some portion of your infrastructure into the cloud. From previous experience, it seems likely Microsoft plans to gradually phase out the on-premises version of SharePoint 2013 over the next five years or so. In two years, for example, Microsoft is likely to make its final new release of a SharePoint on-premises update, and continue from that point with only bug fixes and service packs.
It’s also possible that what people think of as SharePoint could morph into something else entirely, becoming the document management portion of the Microsoft Office stack. There might not be a SharePoint per se, but the technologies and capabilities would still exist in some fashion.
In the next five years, many organizations must face the decision about whether to go to Office 365 or another infrastructure. Companies that are dedicated to the on-premises version do miss out on a couple of key benefits by not moving to Office 365 or SharePoint Online.
- Reduced access to new features: Microsoft is developing its new features for the cloud first. On-premises users shouldn’t expect to see these updates until much later (if at all).
- Limited integration with enterprise social functions: If you’re interested in social, don’t count on that being introduced for on-premises. Microsoft is only going to invest in building out social capabilities in Yammer or Office 365. It’s unlikely to make additional improvements in the social capabilities of SharePoint 2013.
In the end, if you’re interested in an integrated social network or a social computing experience for your organization, the cloud and Office 365 is where you need to look. But if you feel comfortable with the Microsoft stack and you want to stick with your on-premises SharePoint strategy for the time being, that’s not necessarily a bad idea. Just make sure you’re keeping your SharePoint environment cloud-ready. Introducing a lot of customizations into your on-premises SharePoint environment makes moving to the cloud a lot more complex.
Learn more about creating the right SharePoint strategy for your organization by contacting Portal Solutions.
