Excerpts from Q&A Session of the webinar: SharePoint as your Digital Marketing Platform

Oakbrook Terrace, IL, Dec 15, 2011: This webinar introduced several Digital Marketing requirements in the corporate world today and a holistic view on how SharePoint For Internet Sites and FAST Search Server 2010 can be leveraged to enhance the overall digital marketing experience. Here are some of the excerpts of the Q&A session

1- What scenarios require the SharePoint Server for Internet Sites License?

When you expect a large numbers of anonymous users to access the site and would thus not be able to go for user CALs, and when you want to have advanced digital publishing and content management and search features, SPSFIS is required.

2- Can SP FIS be used for the organization’s intranet in addition to the extranet?

No. Take a scenario where In this scenario, one subset of information is available only to Internal Users, another subset of information is available to both Internal Users and authenticated External Users, and a third subset of information is available to anonymous External Users. In this case you would need the following licenses:

Server -> 1 SPS/RI for servers for internal information, 1 SPSFIS/RI for servers for external information*

Internal User (publishing) -> needs no CAL

Internal User (otherwise) -> 1 CAL/User, External User needs no CAL

External User -> needs no CAL

In other words, the same license cannot be used for an intranet. An intranet would require a SharePoint 2010 Server with user CALs

3- If the Microsoft solution based on SharePoint FIS consists of enterprise platform capabilities, it must be very expensive compared to other market players. Is this true?

This is not true. Here are some points to consider:

SharePoint FIS is available by a “per server” licensing structure. Therefore, organizations do not have to acquire separate client access licenses.

A key Microsoft strength is its ability to offer interoperable solutions that are noticeably less expensive than competing products such as FatWire, Alfresco, EMC, SDL Tridion, Vignette and Interwoven, and Oracle.

For an organization that already has a SharePoint-based intranet infrastructure, the total cost of ownership (TCO) will be significantly lower with SharePoint FIS compared to an open source solution. With SharePoint FIS, content managers and IT staff can:

Transfer skill sets

Manage sites with familiar tools

Interact with familiar interfaces

Benefit from a favorable licensing cost

SharePoint FIS includes capabilities such as Digital Marketing, Social Computing, WCM and DAM, Commerce, Advertising, Web Analytics, User Experience, Collaboration, and Search. It is also built and managed within a single, integrated solution that offers a positive ROI.

4- Can you manage multi-lingual sites using FIS?

The "variations" feature of SharePoint FIS manages multilingual, multi-device, or multi-brand sites. It allows content management between a source site and target site by facilitating:

Designation of the source site and target site with variation labels

Automatic creation of sites and target pages

Propagation of pages from source sites to target sites, with approval

This feature also provides translation workflows to efficiently run the translation process.

5- How is SP FIS licensed?

SharePoint Server for Internet Sites is licensed per running instance

No Client Access Licenses (CALs) are required, even for authors creating content

When using SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites for licensing external-facing scenarios, you must have a server license for all servers that are used to deliver content to external users, regardless of the farm configuration or whether or not users are directly accessing that server (staging, application, front-end, or index). Servers in a development/test environment are exempt from this rule assuming they are covered by MSDN® developer program licensing.

6- What are the differences between the SharePoint Server for Internet Sites Standard and SharePoint Server for Internet Sites Enterprise?

SharePoint Server for Internet Sites Standard:

Helps small and midsize organizations create public Internet sites or basic extranets

Provides licensing for the same features as the Standard CAL for SharePoint Server

Designed only to be used for creating and hosting a single site resolved from a single domain name (for example, contoso.com) and its subdomains (for example, support.contoso.com). (A “site” is a collection of interconnected web pages and related web content that share a common home page.)

When combined with active Microsoft Software Assurance, it is eligible to be stepped up to SharePoint Server for Internet Sites Enterprise for an additional fee

SharePoint Server for Internet Sites Enterprise:

Designed for enterprises to create externally-facing public Internet sites and secure private extranets using the full capabilities of SharePoint Server

Provides licensing for all SharePoint Server features (the same as SharePoint Server Enterprise CAL)

Offers the rights to host an unlimited number of sites and/or domains

7- Is it difficult to brand a SharePoint FIS Site?

Customizing a SharePoint site is a simple matter of manipulating master pages, page layouts, and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Master pages and page layouts are the same as any other ASPX/HTML page and can be modified with Microsoft SharePoint Designer. Pages and layouts, including CSS, can be packaged as features and launched using solution deployment packages.

8- How many SharePoint Internet sites are Live currently? Can you give examples of some of the big implementations? (KB)

Over 500 SharePoint Internet sites are currently live, with more in the pipeline. Examples include Hawaiian Airlines, SchoolNet, Kroger, MTV, Dell, The Times, Bank of America, CISCO, Orange County Public schools, FORD Motor Company, Deloitte, Kraft Foods and the U.S. Marines.

9- How does SharePoint FIS score vis-a-vis Open Source solutions (KB)

Customers believe that open source software is cheaper. However we beg to differ. A key Microsoft strength is to effectively offer integrated solutions (unified platform), which are noticeably less expensive than competing products (both open source and commercial)

The acquisition cost is much less for businesses having a volume license and a support contract with Microsoft, as compared to acquiring an open source solution

Organizations running on the Windows environment can substantially reduce their TCO with SharePoint FIS rather than opting for an open source solution

TCO for open source must include all costs, including those for support services, which are often provided by one or only a handful of third parties, if any. Community-based support may seem inexpensive, but they do not offer critical 24x7 care

10- What social networking features are available with SP FIS? (KB)

Social networking features with SP FIS include- User profile, my site, blogs, wikis, and discussionboards, a collection of social networking web parts including Colleagues list, colleague tracker, membership & links, ‘in common with’, as well as presence information and People Search.

11- In the second case study related to SharePoint implementation for a Healthcare group, you mentioned about certain specific web parts. Can you throw more light on those? (KB)

Some of the custom web parts we worked on included Calendar, Announcements, Document Library, and Photo gallery, Quick Launch / Left Navigation, Media Library and a Survey Discussion Board.