7 ms·

Yea, I agree. I'm also amazed at how much suckage people are willing to put up with in O365, but still consider it a better choice than Google Docs for the com

Yea, I agree. I'm also amazed at how much suckage people are willing to put up with in O365, but still consider it a better choice than Google Docs for the company. Sharepoint is complete crap, and the off Sharepoint file syncer client is absurdly flaky, but there is a huge tolerance for that kind of thing. Or at least, it's not the biggest factor when considering making year+ commitments to one office suite or another. Price, familiarity and feature-richness are definitely in MS favor.

dleslie 10y ago
Isn't OneDrive replacing SharePoint?
- sithadmin 10y ago
  No. They don't really accomplish the same goals, and SharePoint Online is still a going concern. That said, just as Skype and Skype for Business are very different beasts under the hood, One Drive and One Drive for Business are also quite different, the latter being shoehorned on top of SharePoint.
  - toyg 10y ago
    OneDrive and Sharepoint are the worst part of O365. After the simplicity of Dropbox "one big drive in the cloud", it's a real pain to figure out how you're supposed to work with OD/SP - and good luck doing it without a dedicated fulltime SP admin.
  - jyrkesh 10y ago
    Not since they replaced the OneDrive for Business Client: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Transition-from-the-previous-OneDrive-for-Business-sync-client-4100df3a-0c96-464f-b0a8-c20de34da6fa https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Transition-from-the... AFAIK, it's all basically OneDrive under the hood now. Which is great because all the Groove/SharePoint based syncing was awful before.
- hackcrafter 10y ago
  Maybe from a tech perspective, but the SharePoint "brand" is still heavily used in O365 enterprise for the same file-syncing stuff that OneDrive does in consumer-services. Which brings up another O365 nit, MS has these direct consumer services and O365 services all on different account silos such that when I log into O365 I have to go through a decision tree that answers two levels of questions about which _account_ my company email address is referring to: MS Personal vs Organization Issued vs Organization but Personally Created (not sure how the last category exists)
  - basch 10y ago
    it says at the bottom if you want to avoid the decision tree to rename your personal account. pick a second username and the problem goes away.
- nimish 10y ago
  OneDrive for Business = rebrand of Sharepoint storage, hence the complete separation from OneDrive's consumer (fka Windows Live Mesh) stuff
- tomc1985 10y ago
  They seem to be parallel services, like Lync and Skype. I still cannot figure out where our documents are stored... is it on the windows share? OneDrive? SharePoint? My personal Dropbox?? Outlook for Android is the biggest piece of shit to hit mobile and O365 on the web takes a huge smelly dump on linux users. I am still angry at my employer for foisting this garbage upon us, just so the nontechnical exec team can have their precious Outlook
  - wilde 10y ago
    Do they have IMAP or ActiveSync disabled? You should be able to find compatible replacement clients.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    > "like Lync and Skype" Lync has been renamed to Skype For Business, and is very similar in terms of user experience to the standard Skype app. > "I still cannot figure out where our documents are stored... is it on the windows share? OneDrive? SharePoint? My personal Dropbox??" You can hardly blame Microsoft for the slack IT policies at your workplace.
    - douche 10y ago
      Skype for Business and Skype are two completely different, just barely compatible things. They run completely different networking protocols, and the S4B client is still, barring some cosmetic skinning, the same as the Lync client from nearly four years ago. The About page in the S4B client may still be calling itself the Microsoft Lync Client - it was still doing so in the 2016 version of the client this spring... What a colossal marketing cockup
      - ZenoArrow 10y ago
        Very few people care about networking protocols, and SFB is explicitly a business communication tool, meaning that most of your contact will be with people who also have SFB. As for the About page of SFB, I can't comment on what it was before, but I've just checked, it now says Skype For Business 2016.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Is it? "OneDrive for Business", as I understand, is (an interface to) SharePoint, and completely, aside from branding, different from consumer OneDrive.
- basch 10y ago
  Sharepoint is to Exchange as OneDrive is to Outlook. Sharepoint is the server, Exchange is the server. The Sharepoint server hosts Web OneDrive like the Exchange server hosts OWA Outlook Web Access. If you want to use the desktop client for either, instead of the browser javascript, you can download and install the binary.
ZenoArrow 10y ago
SharePoint has been crap in the past, I'd agree with that, and Outlook is poor when it comes to HTML standards, but the rest of O365 seems solid to me. Other than SharePoint, what in particular do you see as weaknesses in the O365 lineup?
user5994461 10y ago
> Sharepoint is complete crap, and the off Sharepoint file syncer client is absurdly flaky, but there is a huge tolerance for that kind of thing. With SharePoint I can share documents and directories with other people in my company. As much as I think SharePoint is "mediocre", Google Doc is just shit when it comes to sharing[1]. [1] The only sharing google doc does well is sending a link to ONE SINGLE DOCUMENT to a bunch of people by EMAIL ONLY.
- foota 10y ago
  What's wrong with their sharing? I don't understand your comment in [1]
  - user5994461 10y ago
    With a sharepoint, there is a single place where everything is stored, the sharepoint. Everything there is accessible, visible and searchable (modulo access permissions). It's de-facto shared. --- With a Google Drive, all contents is private, only visible by you, only accessible by yourself. Other people can't access your stuff, people can't search your stuff, people can't even know what may or may not exist. If you want to share something, you have to email a link a single specific document of yours to selected people (who will each individually have to accept the invite). How do you keep track of what is shared? by who? to who? how do you share stuff to groups/teams/businessunit? Basically, google docs intuitively goes against everything you want to do in an entreprisey context.
    - sowbug 10y ago
      It's easy to share a folder in Google Drive.
    - tluyben2 10y ago
      Everything you say also goes for Drive... Not sure what you mean?
    - timdierks 10y ago
      You can share folders; also, check out Team Drive. https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/21/google-opens-up-its-new-product-for-business-file-sharing-team-drives-to-early-adopters/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/21/google-opens-up-its-new-pr...

dleslie 10y ago

Isn't OneDrive replacing SharePoint?

sithadmin 10y ago
No. They don't really accomplish the same goals, and SharePoint Online is still a going concern. That said, just as Skype and Skype for Business are very different beasts under the hood, One Drive and One Drive for Business are also quite different, the latter being shoehorned on top of SharePoint.
- toyg 10y ago
  OneDrive and Sharepoint are the worst part of O365. After the simplicity of Dropbox "one big drive in the cloud", it's a real pain to figure out how you're supposed to work with OD/SP - and good luck doing it without a dedicated fulltime SP admin.
- jyrkesh 10y ago
  Not since they replaced the OneDrive for Business Client: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Transition-from-the-previous-OneDrive-for-Business-sync-client-4100df3a-0c96-464f-b0a8-c20de34da6fa https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Transition-from-the... AFAIK, it's all basically OneDrive under the hood now. Which is great because all the Groove/SharePoint based syncing was awful before.
hackcrafter 10y ago
Maybe from a tech perspective, but the SharePoint "brand" is still heavily used in O365 enterprise for the same file-syncing stuff that OneDrive does in consumer-services. Which brings up another O365 nit, MS has these direct consumer services and O365 services all on different account silos such that when I log into O365 I have to go through a decision tree that answers two levels of questions about which _account_ my company email address is referring to: MS Personal vs Organization Issued vs Organization but Personally Created (not sure how the last category exists)
- basch 10y ago
  it says at the bottom if you want to avoid the decision tree to rename your personal account. pick a second username and the problem goes away.
nimish 10y ago
OneDrive for Business = rebrand of Sharepoint storage, hence the complete separation from OneDrive's consumer (fka Windows Live Mesh) stuff
tomc1985 10y ago
They seem to be parallel services, like Lync and Skype. I still cannot figure out where our documents are stored... is it on the windows share? OneDrive? SharePoint? My personal Dropbox?? Outlook for Android is the biggest piece of shit to hit mobile and O365 on the web takes a huge smelly dump on linux users. I am still angry at my employer for foisting this garbage upon us, just so the nontechnical exec team can have their precious Outlook
- wilde 10y ago
  Do they have IMAP or ActiveSync disabled? You should be able to find compatible replacement clients.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "like Lync and Skype" Lync has been renamed to Skype For Business, and is very similar in terms of user experience to the standard Skype app. > "I still cannot figure out where our documents are stored... is it on the windows share? OneDrive? SharePoint? My personal Dropbox??" You can hardly blame Microsoft for the slack IT policies at your workplace.
  - douche 10y ago
    Skype for Business and Skype are two completely different, just barely compatible things. They run completely different networking protocols, and the S4B client is still, barring some cosmetic skinning, the same as the Lync client from nearly four years ago. The About page in the S4B client may still be calling itself the Microsoft Lync Client - it was still doing so in the 2016 version of the client this spring... What a colossal marketing cockup
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      Very few people care about networking protocols, and SFB is explicitly a business communication tool, meaning that most of your contact will be with people who also have SFB. As for the About page of SFB, I can't comment on what it was before, but I've just checked, it now says Skype For Business 2016.
dragonwriter 10y ago
Is it? "OneDrive for Business", as I understand, is (an interface to) SharePoint, and completely, aside from branding, different from consumer OneDrive.
basch 10y ago
Sharepoint is to Exchange as OneDrive is to Outlook. Sharepoint is the server, Exchange is the server. The Sharepoint server hosts Web OneDrive like the Exchange server hosts OWA Outlook Web Access. If you want to use the desktop client for either, instead of the browser javascript, you can download and install the binary.

ZenoArrow 10y ago

SharePoint has been crap in the past, I'd agree with that, and Outlook is poor when it comes to HTML standards, but the rest of O365 seems solid to me. Other than SharePoint, what in particular do you see as weaknesses in the O365 lineup?

user5994461 10y ago

> Sharepoint is complete crap, and the off Sharepoint file syncer client is absurdly flaky, but there is a huge tolerance for that kind of thing. With SharePoint I can share documents and directories with other people in my company. As much as I think SharePoint is "mediocre", Google Doc is just shit when it comes to sharing[1]. [1] The only sharing google doc does well is sending a link to ONE SINGLE DOCUMENT to a bunch of people by EMAIL ONLY.

foota 10y ago
What's wrong with their sharing? I don't understand your comment in [1]
- user5994461 10y ago
  With a sharepoint, there is a single place where everything is stored, the sharepoint. Everything there is accessible, visible and searchable (modulo access permissions). It's de-facto shared. --- With a Google Drive, all contents is private, only visible by you, only accessible by yourself. Other people can't access your stuff, people can't search your stuff, people can't even know what may or may not exist. If you want to share something, you have to email a link a single specific document of yours to selected people (who will each individually have to accept the invite). How do you keep track of what is shared? by who? to who? how do you share stuff to groups/teams/businessunit? Basically, google docs intuitively goes against everything you want to do in an entreprisey context.
  - sowbug 10y ago
    It's easy to share a folder in Google Drive.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    Everything you say also goes for Drive... Not sure what you mean?
  - timdierks 10y ago
    You can share folders; also, check out Team Drive. https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/21/google-opens-up-its-new-product-for-business-file-sharing-team-drives-to-early-adopters/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/21/google-opens-up-its-new-pr...