So far, we've taken a whirlwind tour of SharePoint Online, barely scratching the surface of the default functionality within a SharePoint site. Considering the first version of SharePoint was introduced in 2001, a lot of has evolved since then. But at the same a lot has surprisingly stayed the same: document libraries, lists, and sites more or less share the same concepts as they did over 15 years ago.
Today, companies choose SharePoint Online for several reasons. In our opinion, the three main reasons companies choose SharePoint Online are:
- Compatibility and cooperation with Office suite applications, including cross-platform support on macOS and Office Online browser users
- A readily available intranet and extranet platform that works with single sign-on (using Azure Active Directory as the identity provider)
- It works natively with Exchange, Skype for Business, and OneDrive for Business, which are the default choices of productivity tools for many organizations
Most probably the development aspects of SharePoint Online are not the primary reason for companies to choose SharePoint Online. Interoperability, common standards, and well-documented APIs are critical, but often not the main driver for choosing SharePoint Online to start with.
Microsoft claims* that over 90 percent of Fortune 500 users are using Microsoft's cloud services; this, of course, includes both Microsoft Azure and Office 365. While the claim is very impressive, it does not mean that all 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies are solely using Office 365 and/or Microsoft Azure; they might be using Amazon's AWS or any number of other hosting or public cloud offerings available, together with Office 365. The reality, though, is that over 100 million users are accessing Office 365 workloads every month. This is an amazing number of users who have enrolled to a paid license and are actively using any number of the multiple services Office 365 has to offer. As such, development for SharePoint Online is something that is in demand from both small and large organizations and enterprises, as well ISVs who need to implement their own products to fit with Office 365.
Microsoft 2017 earnings call; see https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2017-Q3/press-release-webcast.
Another reason that organizations choose SharePoint Online is that they might already be paying for it. When they initially purchased a license for Office 365 to maybe use Exchange Online for their emails, they typically also purchased a SharePoint Online license for users. Nowadays this includes 1 terabyte of storage to hold all SharePoint Online content, as well as the majority of SharePoint Online functionality. Comparing this free offering to an on-premises SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint 2016 deployment often means that SPO becomes a compelling option. While the on-premises deployment of SharePoint typically requires at least 3-6 months for full installation, roll-out for users, customization, configuration, and managing--the equivalent in Office 365-SharePoint Online is already there and ready to use. This is not to say that SharePoint Online and SharePoint on-premises are identical; however, they do share more or less the same set of features that most users tend to need.