SharePoint intranets-in-a-box 2019 launch

Our most comprehensive buyers’ guide ever

Our new SharePoint intranets-in-box report is now available. It’s 600 pages of critical evaluations, buying advice and checklists, all richly illustrated with screenshots. You won’t find this information elsewhere, even if you visited every page on the vendor websites. This time around we cover 56 products (39 in detail and 17 in summary).

The market for SharePoint intranets has never been so active. Even after eliminating products that looked too unestablished or niche, we still ended up with a sizable report, with new countries and innovations entering the market. Most of the year we’re not writing reviews but instead consulting on intranet strategy. On this side too we see intranets and the wider digital workplace getting more attention than ever.

Enhancements over our 2018 report

Given Microsoft’s changes to SharePoint over the last year, we’ve substantially revised our evaluation criteria to ensure that products are keeping pace. Every vendor was asked to carry out a live demonstration of their product; we checked how they have embraced modern UX, how they align with hub and communication sites, and where they add value. Many scenarios have got tougher, resulting in a reduction in scoring for some products.

What’s new in this report:

Adding a ‘Voice of Customer’ element has been particularly interesting. We contacted dozens of customers directly and got responses to a public survey. These comments give us extra insight into what it is like to live with the products day-to-day and the quality of customer services from the vendors.

As always, our reviews are entirely vendor-neutral (nobody pays to be in the report; we don’t sell any products or accept referral fees). They are based on in-depth live demonstrations against the criteria we set and go through rigorous fact-checking.

An ever-growing market

We’ve been researching this market since 2016, and it has been fascinating to see how it has grown. We actually expected to see a slow down in 2018. Firstly because SharePoint’s base capabilities mean that the simple formula of a better UX and some news publishing will no longer cut it, and secondly because the partner model has also grown. Companies choosing to partner with a mature product vendor makes sense to us, rather than launching a new product into a local market.

We’ve been wrong up to now! However there are early signs of change, with some vendors dropping out. This is all the more reason why our report is an essential tool. Too often companies spread their assessment time thinly over many companies. Instead, our report lets you shortlist quickly and then do a proper investigation. We give some data about company track record, but once you’ve narrowed it down to two to three choices, make sure your procurement people do due diligence.

Chart showing the number of ‘in-a-box’ intranet products for SharePoint since 2010, with rapid growth since 2014.

Practical experience

We had a highly experienced team of six reviewers, with Sam Marshall in the role of report director. Between us, the team has over 85 years of intranet experience, many of those as intranet managers ourselves. I’m grateful to I’m grateful to Andrew Marr, Chris Tubb, James Dellow, Guy van Leemput and Wedge Black for their incisive review work.

Steve Bynghall did a splendid job as editor and sparring partner to ensure everyone was evaluated fairly, and Fiona Claymore worked tirelessly as report co-ordinator to keep the wheels turning.

And in case you’re wondering, yes we used SharePoint to produce the report – along with an awful lot of chatter on Microsoft Teams!

You can buy the report as a PDF for immediate download by credit card of PayPal.

Sam Marshall

Andrew Marr

Chris Tubb

James Dellow

Wedge Black

Steve Bynghall

Guy Van Leemput

Take a look at the full report.