This first- of-its-kind guide for the legal profession shows you how to use standard technology you already have and theUsing Sharepoint to Collaborate Outside the Organization
Microsoft's Sharepoint is am amazingly powerful technology -- I don't even understand everything Sharepoint can do. I'm familiar with using Sharepoint as a project management tool, both within an organization and outside the firewall with members of the ABA TECHSHOW board. But did you know, for instance, that you can build a website using Sharepoint? I didn't. It's not a topic for today's post, but I mention this to demonstrate the incredible power of this software tool.
But companies that want to work better with their customers or clients can also use Sharepoint to enhance the business relationship. For example, the insurance company Allied North America created a "mySocrates portal" based on Sharepoint for its insurance customers. Insureds can check on the status of interactions with the insurance company, review data about injuries that occur on the insureds' worksites, and hopefully improve their risk management as a result.
This is a great example not only of using technology to work smarter with your customers, but also a great way to offer extra value to your clients beyond the main services offered.
I've used SharePoint for years as a useful tool for managing legal discovery projects. Out of the box, it does have its limitations as a project management tool and doesn't completely replace specialized PM tools like MS Project. That is, however, changing as more vendors are building project management and case management products on top of SharePoint.
An interesting recent development that I would be interested in reading your thoughts on is Google Sites, integrated with Google Spreadsheets. I find that it offers a number of interesting features that you would have to spend a lot of time and or/money to create the equivalent in Sharepoint--dynamic charts drawing from datasheets for example. Easy creation of Web forms to allow for easy entry of data is another example.
Mashups are also much easier with Google Sites than SharePoint. Furthermore, I find that end-users will pick up on how to create team sites in Google Sites and play and implement more advanced features more quickly with Google Sites than SharePoint.
I certainly don't see Google Sites as a SharePoint killer, but I think it would be a compelling collaboration solution for small to medium firms and attorneys who are less comfortable with technology and don't have the IT budgets to host their own SharePoint servers or even to properly manage a hosted SharePoint solution.