My Portal Project

Could their ever be a more flame-worthy title? Yet, what makes Sharepoint the new Notes is not only what is does well, but also what it does not do well.

Those that have read my work over the past few years know that I am an ex-IBM Lotus Notes consultant/developer that has had alot of recent experience in the Microsoft.NET world including Sharepoint 2007 (aka MOSS 2007). When I wrote the “.NET for Domino Developers” series, and the “Sharepoint from the Domino Developer perspective” articles, I tried to stay away from doing side-by-side feature comparisons of the two products but instead tried to focus on where they were similar.

I’ll start off with my version of why Notes succeeded:
It was the only product that allowed rapid development of collaborative applications using a simplified data store, wrapped with a powerful security model, that could go mobile when it wanted, and it included e-mail.

By no means is that a comprehensive statement, but based upon my experience deploying Notes solutions to customers from 1994 - 2005, it covers most of the bases while being succinct. One could argue for the inclusion of hundreds of other features, but I needed a starting point for my statement, and here it is.

So can Sharepoint match this over-simplified feature statement? Yes and No. When it comes down to it, they are two products that are made to do the same thing, but each has taken a different approach to getting there.

Development:
October 22, 1994 - The day I deployed my first Notes application to track cost-saving ideas. I’ll never forget that day because I started developing with Lotus Notes using nothing more than the included manuals (no Google back then). I would be hard-pressed to find any other product that could allow a non-developer to create a useful application with so little resources. Albeit, users expectations of applications were alot more simple back then too.

Forms, Views, Folders, Agents, these were the tools that made it simple. Then we got LotusScript, Outlines, Navigators, and things got more and more interesting. These simple pieces allowed us to create complex applications with ALOT less effort than the traditional development at the time.

Sharepoint takes the best parts of this model and has again created the simple, yet powerful, path to creating useful applications. I can quickly create a new application, with a few forms, some basic workflow, and tens of views, in a few hours.

Then, if I need to go beyond the power of the built-in form/list/view model, I can create pages or user controls (something like portlets) using my preferred ASP.NET language, using the same lists and views as data and workflow mechanisms.

Some like to point out that I HAVE to use Visual Studio to develop for Sharepoint, and that I HAVE to run Windows for my apps. Well, I can use notepad to develop ASP.NET pages and the code behind pages, I would just lose things like debugging and type-ahead. I could never do that with Notes. As for the operating system; that is more of a subjective topic.

With the inclusion of Windows Workflow Foundation in the .NET 3.0 framework, Microsoft will be able to easily trump Notes when it comes to the creation and managing of enterprise workflows. These workflows are designed with a drag-drop model and allow the developers to invoke them without having to store the code of the workflow in the application itself. Over the years I never liked it when people touted Notes’ workflow capabilities. Considering how most developers embed their workflow logic into buttons and agents, I always felt there was little to tout.

Last on the development front is one that has plagued me personally for a few years; the Notes client inability to call web services without a major development effort. Take this limitation and compare it to how easy this is in the .NET/Sharepoint world; there is no comparison (Although certainly easier with Notes 8, it is still not as simple as it needs to be).

Security:
This is an example of where the two products diverge to meet the same end. Since Sharepoint is a centralized platform, it relies on a centralized directory to drive its security. This can be Active directory or an LDAP directory. Access is granted to an application to an individual or group, and access can be denied the same way. Security at the row level can be done easily with document libraries, and less so with your basic list. Both products extend the traditional pass/deny mode with roles (Notes) and audiences (Sharepoint). Sharepoint does not have any built-in ability to secure at the field level, but the .NET API has classes for encryption and/or hashing.

Mobility:
With Notes, we replicate our data, and take it with us. Sharepoint has difficulty with this. Everything Sharepoint does is through a browser with the data centralized, so true mobility of the data is problematic. One could design an application for a handheld that uses SQL Server Anywhere that has built in replication capabilities, but nothing is built into the Sharepoint product. My personal take is that this was a powerful Notes feature back in 1994, but less so today.

Every day our ability to connect to public and private networks wirelessly grows. Do we really need to take our data with us? My local McDonalds now has free wireless internet, as does the Starbucks. With a Sharepoint site, there is a selectable option to provide the site to mobile devices; no development changes required. Another example of the different approaches each product takes to get to the same end.

Under the Mobility category I will address the “Notes client runs on Linux, etc…” argument. If all of my Sharepoint applications are browser based, the local OS makes no difference to me. Of course, browser applications bring along a whole host of their own issues, but this again enters into the subjective.

E-mail:
Sharepoint simply does not have any e-mail client or server attached. Yet, this has not stopped us from using e-mail within our workflow apps. Using SMTP has been perfectly acceptable, and in fact, it has been Notes’ inability to display HTML formatted e-mails that has been a bigger issue for us (Yes, Notes 8 is much better, but the client version I use is not my determination).

Now for those things that Sharepoint does not do well, that remind me of Lotus Notes.

Application islands:
Both platforms allow rapid development/deployment of collaboration solutions. Unfortunately, this can lead to the “monster effect” where the organization sees the simplicity and everybody wants a piece of it with their own application to do xyz. If this effect is poorly managed, the organization ends up with a large number of discordant data stores that are difficult to navigate and few know where everything is. I would add that Sharepoint mitigates this slightly by allowing sites to be moved within an application taxonomy. Yet, the taxonomy has to be done correctly or all is moot.

Data store:
Both have simplified data stores that assist in the rapid development. This simplified data model can make reporting an absolute nightmare. Of course both products allow you to write your own script/vb to output your required reports, but when you attempt to combine the built in views/lists for reporting, both fall flat on their faces. Both platforms use a flat data store which breaks down when you combine alot of records with wide records (lots of fields).

Recently, we have started using Access 2007 which presents all the data stored in a Sharepoint site in a relational context, which has made for some very easily developed reports that are can be exported on a periodic basis.

Future:
Amidst all of these comparisons, I still see these two products existing side-by-side for quite some time. For each products weaknesses, the other has a tendency to do better. If is not apparent, I have thrown my hat into the .NET and Sharepoint ring for the next few years, but I look fondly upon those years working in the Notes world.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 8:36 am and is filed under Notes/Domino, .NET for Domino Devs, ASP.NET, LinkedIn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.