Is the Microsoft SharePoint Upgrade Really Worth It?

For being able to use SharePoint technology efficaciously a company needs to plan, manage and govern the technology on an ongoing basis. There are plenty of reasons why a business should consider frequent technology updates. Microsoft SharePoint websites take care of all the important information and operations of a website and that is what makes it important to make upgrades to the sites and offer services that are quick and accurate while preserving the original flavor of the site. A lot of companies consider upgrades as they provide more efficient ways of doing the same task. As a technology becomes old the resources for supporting it also become scarce thereby making it difficult for the organization to get experienced professionals for that particular technology. Quite often upgrades also provide new and useful functions, features and support for newer technologies.

To give you a couple of quick reasons on why you should consider migration or upgrade

• Content management is significantly improved with SharePoint 2013
• Enhanced social collaboration with focus on social experience and user interface
• Expanded mobile accessibility with multiple mobile device friendliness
• Improved hosting features for public-facing websites for better brand management
• More insights with improved business intelligence

Below are some compelling reasons related to SharePoint 2013 technology for considering migration from another product or upgrading your existing SharePoint platform:

1. Enhances search function – Microsoft has integrated the FAST search technology into SharePoint 2013. This has made it a leader in enterprise search. With the new search features there is constant crawling and indexing. Content is indexed every few minutes making it easier and faster to find files. Another aspect of this feature is query conditions and query actions that features the most relevant search results for the user. This offers the users more flexibility as the search results are now sorted, displayed and presented basis the criterion provided by the users.
2. Intranet related search enhancements – It is easier to find and reads search results just by hovering the mouse over them. The results get sorted and optimized conveniently. The new version of SharePoint shows important chapters and sections from the file directly with no need for downloading the file.
3. Enhanced web content usability – It is easier to edit pages and web content using SharePoint 2013. Content can be copied directly from word and pasted into the word press editor wherein text gets displayed in the already defined style of the site removing the need for too much editing. It also has friendly URLs, video embedding and designing features that allow editing and designing to be done through Adobe Dreamweaver and other editing tools.
4. Digital Asset Management – Content rich companies with a large volume of data, videos and images need to have an efficient and effective data management system. SharePoint 2013 has features that allow images and content to be stored centrally and retrieved easily.
5. Cross-site publishing – SharePoint 2013 also has a unique feature called cross-site publishing. This feature allows content to be stored and maintained across multiple authoring sites and shared and to be displayed as well in multiple publishing sites. This ensures consistency of information across different sites.

David Clark is the technical writer for Espire Infolabs, an end to end business solutions provider company. Follow David and Espire Infolabs on Twitter, @EspireInfolabs, like them on Facebook and check out more of their services: http://www.espire.com/solutions/web-content-management/user-experience