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Note the InterNet, not IntraNet word there. I have been asked to use SharePoints most recent release to develop an e-Commerce Portal that will allow each visitor to have a customized viewing PORTAL to return to to have a calendar of events custom to their own ticket purchases, special events, threaded topic discussions, documents relevant to their particular activities. The user ID's tied to e-mail addresses in a SQL database. The current development platform is running SQL 2000 on a ,Net developed platform using ASP.Net on Windows 2003 servers. The question I have is I have never seen or heard of using a Microsoft SharePoint Server not tied to any AD Id's as an outward facing Internet sight for tens of thousands of users. (15-30,000) Anybody want to chime in here and let me know about their experience or thoughts on such a venture?
SharePoint is fine for an intranet environment where everyone is on a prescribed version of Windows. But the Internet is a whole other matter -- there are users on many operating systems.
Keep in mind that SharePoint is not a Web server -- at least not in the traditional sense. It is a client/server system that integrates with the Windows operating system, AD, IE and MS Office. In that regard, it doesn't just use a thick client, it's uses a very thick client.
You can certainly use Firefox, a Mac, etc., for basic access SharePoint to content, but many of the interactive features of the site are only available to users with a current Windows and Office installation.
As a MS developer once told me: Sharepoint is not a Web server. It is a marketing strategy that is designed to drive people toward Windows and keep them buying upgrades.
I suppose SharePoint might work just dandy as an e-commerce tool. However, my concern would be not just the authentication/AD issues, but whether it's fully functional for all customers. Otherwise, you're essentially telling 10% or 20% of your customers, "You can't fully use our site, because we're supporting Microsoft's goal of getting you to buy their products."
I can't imagine I'd have that goal in my e-commerce business plan.
Keep in mind that using any web server requires two different scripts for some functions - one for IE users and another for Mozilla users (Firefox, etc.).
Regardless of the difficulties of having to tie in SP without an AD infrastructure (although I understand there is some form of internal user management), my recent experience with getting SP installed (nearly done migration to MOSS 2007) has been less than advertised.
As you might expect, getting anything customized in SP has been a pain. Both Msoft & the subcontractor have said "that's not out of the box" to us so many times I'm hearing it in my sleep. At the end of the day, I suspect you'll have to do so much customization to make it work that it won't be worth the effort or the cost.
I like some of what I've seen in Spoint, but I'm not 1000% comfortable with it as an INTRANET, much less a public facing platform.
The office where I work is a one hundred percent microsoft environment with SQL Server 2005, Win Server 2000 and 2003 and .NET development environment.
Until recently my experience with Sharepoint has been limited to that of a casual customer. As a member of an intranet project team considering Sharepoint as an integrated part of our corporate intranet, I have recently gained additional experience with the product and begun studying SP Designer to brand our company's "internal" sites. With my limited experience, I like what I see thus far as a flexible, file sharing environment for an internal corporate network.
However, I would question its use as a fully-functional ecom site for tens of thousands (and growing?) of customers without the available AD authorization, as well as limiting customers to microsoft-centric features, as mentioned above by dan.
I wonder how many ticket purchasers are browsing with their macs? ...
i feel like a mac person who has always had pcs forced upon him ... i have seven browsers installed on my personal laptop just to cross check compatibility for sites i design for clients. i just recently installed the safari version for windows and love the mac look and feel (well, at least with the browser) ...
at the office, there are no worries. we only qualify our web applications for IE6 ... well, except for the lack of PNG alpha transparency support; oh, and the lack of :hover, etc. css selector support for non-<a href...> tags ... maybe a few other drawbacks. thank goodness for HACKS ...
Keep in mind that using any web server requires two different scripts for some functions - one for IE users and another for Mozilla users (Firefox, etc.).
This is not generally true. The server should be essentially transparent to the user --- there is only one instance where I see this not being the case.
Often, you'll need to use seperate CSS, javascript, or even HTML for different browsers, but these are independent of the server they are running on. Unless you are using a server-side language of some sort, web content doesn't care what it is sitting on.
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