[BBLISA] What does SharePoint break for non windows users?

[Edward Ned Harvey (bblisa4)]

> From: bblisa [mailto:bblisa-bounces at bblisa.org] On Behalf Of Paul Beltrani
> 
> We have an IT vendor that's trying to convince our CFO to move to
> Office365/SharePoint. I get why they're proposing it.  They're a Microsoft
> only consultant and it's the only tool in their box.  Also, they stand to make
> some big bucks in professional services to set it all up.
> 
> However, they're steam-rolling over the objections of a large number of
> more modern users who have been using Macs, Linux and Google Apps for
> Business for years.
> Does anyone have recent experience with SharePoint/Office365 using a
> client on any OS other than windows?  I would very much like to know what
> breaks and/or causes difficulty for Mac and Linux users.   If Exchange is any
> example, they'll claim it's cross platform (i.e. OWA) but in practice you get
> limited functionality unless you're running Windows.

"Sharepoint" is way too big for this question to make sense. It's a whole framework, where the actual proposed solution is effectively a custom built app for your environment, so it's like asking "How does microsoft break HTML" or some language.

The truth of the matter is: It's true that lots of microsoft stuff works better on microsoft tools, because microsoft doesn't test their compatibility with non-microsoft stuff as extensively, but as long as you make mac & linux support part of the design requirement for this consulting company, you'll be fine.

I use lots of office365 on many platforms. While it's true that Outlook on Mac is not as good as Outlook on Win ... The missing featureset are just value-add features and microsoft integration that couldn't possibly exist on other clients. Like when I right-click a group and manipulate its membership from within outlook, that's tight microsoft integration that you could never expect from thunderbird or anything else. Many users use thunderbird, or apple mail, or even outlook for mac, or the web client. Their clients work exactly as they're designed to work - which is to say - they're missing all the microsoft integration, but all their lowest common denominator imap and stuff that I consider to be rubbish all works. I say that while I sit on my high horse, but it's what they want, so kudos to them.