While Microsoft's collaboration software tool SharePoint is exceeding customer expectations, customer support is falling short, according to a study from Info-Tech Research Group. SharePoint garnered high praise from enterprise end users consulted because it delivers major business value with low total cost of ownership, but close to one-quarter of customers said they were disappointed in Microsoft's support.

“I don’t think they (Microsoft) knew what to expect, and they were the first ones to admit it because they didn’t expect that SharePoint was going to reach this kind of demand. They are just overwhelmed with calls,” stated one survey respondent.

Microsoft’s ongoing support for SharePoint customers is the lowest-ranked aspect of product deployment, the Info-Tech study found, with 23 per cent stating they are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with SharePoint support. Top-ranked categories with up to 92 per cent satisfaction ratings included functionality, end user experience, total cost of ownership, and end user acceptance. SharePoint’s main selling features include collaboration, portal, enterprise search, content management, business forms and business intelligence. Info-Tech’s study delved into SharePoint implementations of 258 organizations primarily in the U.S. and Canada across varying industries and sizes of business.

“SharePoint is more than just a software product, because it clearly transforms the way IT departments and end users conduct their daily work by enabling more efficient communication and collaboration,” said Fen Yik, research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group. “Adoption has been swift across companies of all sizes and industries but not all are happy with the level of support from Microsoft.”

Yik said Microsoft’s tools and training are not at issue; rather the complaints reported related to ongoing operational support once the solution was deployed. Meanwhile, implementation rates for collaboration software have been high, with adoption statistics indicating that 34 per cent of companies in North America would deploy SharePoint or an equivalent tool by the end of 2007, another 25 per cent plan to do so by end of this year, and a further 19 per cent between 2009 and 2011.

“Clearly this is a winning product for Microsoft and, with such a high percentage of companies saying they are going to implement this type of solution over the next three years, it would be wise for Microsoft to shore up their service,” Yik concluded.

About this study

Contact Info-Tech Research Group for more information on the study, "Delivering Business Value Through SharePoint".

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