Integration Determines Total Cost of Ownership

SharePoint Portal Server arrived on the market at the ideal time for the large-scale document management system (DMS) project. After a thorough examination of the market and detailed product analysis, a team of experts from the Technology Center's KOM (Communication) Department had at first favored a different DMS solution. However, it was determined that SharePoint Portal Server will better ensure the necessary future integration into Deutsche Telekom AG's Microsoft-dominated system. In concrete terms, it was the plans to change the Microsoft Office platform to Office 2000 that revealed, during preliminary stages, the future lack of integration of non-Microsoft products. KOM department head Wilfried Gerfen says, "Office applications are naturally closely connected to the DMS; after all, Word, Excel and PowerPoint® are the sources of the vast majority of the Technology Center's project-related documents."

"Economically speaking, everything pointed to Microsoft's DMS. Every third-party product must inevitably lag behind system and Office-platform upgrades—with a corresponding increase in administrative costs." This is how Uli Grün, who is responsible for KOM's DMS, explains the courageous decision to be the first in Germany to use Microsoft's SharePoint Portal Server. He explains that a favorable price can only be the beginning of an economic feasibility study; the determining factor, however, is the total cost of operating the system, also called the total cost of ownership (TCO). Based on experience, since administrative costs make up a large portion of the TCO, according to Rainer Mack, a Technology Center DMS expert, "The best TCO strategy for the medium and long term is always maximum integration into the system environment."

In the end, a product presentation at Microsoft in Munich convinced Uli Grün's team. The range of functions alone was impressive. However, the completely new, integrative concept of document management was the decisive factor. SharePoint Portal Server comes into play when customers first create documents. It provides complete transparency from a document's first moments of existence until final archiving or deletion at the end of its life cycle. During installation, SharePoint Portal Server also adds appropriate functions to Office applications, which enable check-in and publication of a newly created document in the super ordinate Web Storage System. In Microsoft Office XP, these functions will already be included.

In addition, SharePoint Portal Server uses the same storage technology as Microsoft Exchange Server 2000. For the user this means, among other things, that he can use the new tools and functions with a familiar interface. This reduces administrative costs and limits training expenses. So Rainer Mack need plan only a "basic training day" for users, who will subsequently also be offered an e-mail hotline and further support.