Office 365 and SharePoint

If you've been using SharePoint recently, you or your company is probably aware of it and is trying to see whether or not integration into your website is worth the cost. Though I can't tell you all of the things that come packaged in Office 365 and it's capabilities, but I'll give my first impressions.

First off, Office 365 and SharePoint 2013 have a similar look and feel. Compared to SharePoint 2010, this is much cleaner and is much more friendly in trying to develop. Though at first it took some getting used to in terms of where everything was and the different names, but generally it won't take too long to figure it out if you have some previous familiarity. Also, for people who were frustrated at the appearance options for SharePoint 2010, the look and feel settings more than make up for the problems in 2010.

Microsoft has opened up experimental and free resources for exploring the functionality of these programs using an Office 365 developer site. Using this tool has been very enlightening, especially the Napa design tools which allow you to custom build Application Solutions within SharePoint and test them. In using the Technet tutorial which provides an introduction on how to configure the apps, I have been able to identify future projects and goals. 

Overall, I would suggest Office 365 as this allows for flexibility in deciding whether to have an in-browser view of documents or to download documents. Previously, this has been a burden area for what I've been trying to do in 2010, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the functionality provided.