what are the advantages/disadvantages for using CIS as a document management system?

Question

CIS stands for CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT SOFTWARE and ties in well with ISO certification, which the company I'm working for is looking into. We are running a side by side comparison of CIS and Microsoft Office Sharepoint and I have been keeping a pro/con list of the two. I cannot find anything on the internet regarding disadvantages of CIS and I was wondering if anyone out there has used it before and can give me some insight on it. Maybe a few reasons why the company should go with CIS instead of SharePoint

Thanks

Answer 1

Maybe 10 years ago there was a compelling argument for Sharepoint. It allowed users to collaborate on ideas and projects, acted as a central repository for information, and provided an alternative to group emails.



Nowadays, there is absolutely no reason to use Sharepoint unless your company is so desperately tied to Outlook and MS Project, that nothing gets done without them. Sharepoint is slow (in the ohmygawdslow region of slowness). It's bulky and you'll need a big server stuffed to the gills with RAM just to get it off the ground. Finally, Sharepoint is difficult to secure, especially if you plan on using it to collaborate with people outside the network (partners, clients, consultants, etc.). I've built and managed several Sharepoint installations in the past. Everyone hates them.



Instead of paying $10K+ for software everyone hates, we paid nothing for software everyone loves. Since we're a virtual environment, I built a simple Ubuntu Server installation on 1 processor, 1GB RAM, and 21GB disc storage. Then I just installed a MoinMoin wiki on top of it. We modified it to use Active Directory for authentication. Wiki is a technology that is familiar to all, and MoinMoin allows users to create things like graphs very easily.



Remember, ISO certification just means that certain activities are documented. So if, upon receiving an error notice from your Exchange server, your regular activity is to repeatedly bang your head against the nearest file cabinet, you just need to document it. Then you're ISO-certified. We are proud NOT to be ISO-certified. While certain activities follow a documented path, we prefer to treat most of our issues on a case-by-case basis, where employees are expected to collaborate and show good judgment. Following a script is for people we won't hire...

Answer 2

Look at it the other way: Microsoft has earned its reputation for security and reliability problems due to some fundamentally bad design decisions that were made early in the product line and extended in the name of backward compatibility to this day. They've grown by acquiring other companies products (bought them out) and then sledge hammered them into their own product line with very little design or code review.



If some other company designed the code and it hasn't made it into the Microsoft code base, it is far more likely to have been thought out as an integrated product, be more reliable etc.



And of course, when you call the company with problems, you are more likely to get a useful timely response than if you call Microsoft.



Frankly, if it were me, I would need people to come up with a compelling reason to use Sharepoint, not to NOT use sharepoint.



And for that matter, what is the likelihood that you'll ever be able to resolve a problem using it with non-Microsoft platforms if you use Sharepoint vs. CIS? Do you really want to be in a captive market?

Answer 3

It is not that there can't be more parties, there are. "Peace and Freedom, Libertarian Party" Just reality is third and fourth parties just don't do well. There is a couple Independents in Congress. But when you follow the money it is very difficult in the "off parties" to generate the capital needed to run a National campaign.