subject: Sharepoint In Your Environment- How Much Does It Really Cost [print this page] Now, a fair warning! This article will not be able to give you the exact costs for your own business. For that you'd need to contact a consultant or contact me... What I am going to provide you however is with some general guidelines on how to asses some of this stuff and have a general idea of costs.
I'm guessing you've done the smart thing and realized that you need sharepoint in your business. The thing you really want to figure out next is your costs. How much will it cost you to implement it, integrate it, and get it running? Considering that this is a complex question, I shall try to answer it in the following paragraphs, so pay close attention...
1) What you want to calculate first is the licencing. If you want to find a realistic pricing, go and find out where some microsoft partners are in your area, and inquire about pricing.
Now, the first thing to do is go step by step. First calculate the cost of the SQL database software. I do recommend getting this first. Then, you need to consider that SharePoint has a pre-requisite of having a licenced windows server, so calculate this as well.
2) Licensing
What microsoft has done is created these two types of licences. One is the standard licence and the other is the enterprise licence. What you will need to do is do some deep thinking of which licences fits the size of your needs and teams.
3) Hardware Isn't Free You Know
The big component a lot of people forget is the hardware component. People assume they're ready for it even though many times they might not be. The software now actually requires a 64bit machine with a bare minimum of 2 gigabytes memory. This can barely fit 200 end-users needs, and if you want more you'll need some server farms.
4) The Hidden Cost - Consultants Duh!
Almost every person I've helped asses their implementation costs always leaves this one out. If you don't have a consultant or a consulting team on board, you will not maximize the system. And consultants don't come cheap, so it doesn't make sense not to include them in your cost analysis up front.
