Determining the True Cost of Microsoft SharePoint

Expected Costs

When determining the true cost of deploying SharePoint, CIOs need to consider the expenses typically associated with rolling out any new software product, such as the cost of licenses, server software, virus protection, hardware and infrastructure, and IT staff. Here's a breakdown of the costs IT leaders can expect to incur when deploying SharePoint.

: Microsoft offers different licensing options for SharePoint. Pricing for each of these options can vary considerably based on an organization's licensing agreement with Microsoft. In this regard, it is important for IT leaders to determine if they are going to be employing the free version of SharePoint, known as WSS (Windows SharePoint Services), or if they'll use MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) Standard, Enterprise or SharePoint for Internet Sites.

WSS is the base level of SharePoint that is freely available with Windows Server 2003 and above. No client license is needed for it. MOSS Standard offers additional functionality including records management capabilities and enhanced searching. MOSS Enterprise offers even more: Web-based electronic forms (InfoPath on the Web), the business data catalog (BDC) for connectivity to databases, and Excel services for rendering Excel spreadsheets via the Web in SharePoint. Both versions of MOSS require the purchase of a client access license.

The version of SharePoint a CIO selects will depend upon the functionality his or her organization needs, and the cost of those licenses will in turn depend on the number of instances of server software that is running at any given time and the number of users.