This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Python Buzz by Carlos de la Guardia. Original Post: Plone vs Sharepoint Feed Title: I blog therefore I am Feed URL: http://blog.delaguardia.com.mx/feed.atom Feed Description: A space to put my thoughts into writing. Latest Python Buzz Posts Latest Python Buzz Posts by Carlos de la Guardia Latest Posts From I blog therefore I am

The university of Leicester has published a paper about an internal comparison of Plone and Sharepoint for a corporate web site. The highlights:

• Plone comes ahead as the best choice for their immediate needs.
• Plone is significantly better on accesibility and standards compliance.
• Plone is easier to customize and access to the source code allows developers to solve certain problems that are difficult or impossible to solve in closed source.
• Whereas they didn't have trouble finding large public Plone sites, no similar Sharepoint sites were found by the report team.
• Sharepoint is superior for file sharing sites.
• Sharepoint integration with other Microsoft products is an advantage for content creators.

It's interesting that one of the factors that made the choice of Plone a good idea for them is the number of current sites already using it successfully inside the university. Even though they use Microsoft stuff heavily and have licensing agreements that would allow them to use Sharepoint without additional cost, the fact that they would still have to maintain or migrate those sites played a hand in their selection.

The lesson here is that if you have authority inside your workplace to start even a small site with Plone, just do it. Don't wait until the entire company decides to use it. Launch it and let Plone show what it can do.

One more thing, the paper also says that the IT team was not able to find any third party Plone trainers in the area. Anyone living nearby?