Introduction

The current version of SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online, the subscription-based version of the product available as a component of Microsoft’s Office 365 service (collectively, SharePoint 2013), enable easier collaboration, more powerful enterprise search and business intelligence (BI), and an enhanced platform for building business applications and workflow. A new extensibility model and broader support for Web standards enable businesses to extend SharePoint in new ways but may not be completely compatible with applications built for earlier versions of SharePoint. SharePoint Online now comes remarkably close to the on-premises SharePoint 2013 offering, and it can be combined into a hybrid offering of the two, but there are nuanced limitations to SharePoint Online.

SharePoint Products

SharePoint is a Web application platform, and a suite of applications and components built on that platform, which provides functions such as team collaboration, corporate portal hosting, enterprise search, content management, and BI. The SharePoint product lineup includes the free SharePoint Foundation and the commercial SharePoint Server software. Microsoft hosts SharePoint for organizations in its SharePoint Online service, which includes a multitenant service that puts organizations on shared servers and a dedicated service (for organizations of 30,000 users and up) that gives organizations dedicated servers. SharePoint Online services are commonly sold in the Office 365 suite of Microsoft-hosted services that also includes Exchange Online and Lync Online, and the services can also be purchased separately outside of the suites.