I know people are probably rolling their eyes and thinking "not again", but I think this is an appropriate question to ask now that DNN Professional has been announced with the intent of getting DNN into more businesses.  Sharepoint has a pretty strong foothold in many companies now days, especially for Intranet applications.  My question is then "Why would I want to bring in DNN when I already have Sharepoint in house"?

I am actually working a contract right now that this has come up.  They are using Sharepoint for an intranet application.  They are looking to re-do some of their external facing websites (3 sites right now, possibly more).  There is a small group that wants to use Sharepoint for this since they already use it.  Other than the fact that is costs $40k to purchase Sharepoint for Internet sites, what benefit would I get from using DNN.  What drawback is there from using DNN besides having to learn a new way of developing (webparts vs. modules)?

I have managed both DNN and Sharepoint intranet and internet sites in a corporate enviroment, so I have experiences in both worlds.

First let's start with the annoucement of Dotnetnuke Professional and what information we know about it.  I have been at OpenForce all week and have heard the buzz and I have posted a few entries on my blog with my understanding and my guesses as to what is going to happen with Dotnetnuke Professional.

Sharepoint as an intranet solution makes a lot of sense for a Microsoft centric community that will actually utilize the the work flow, versioning, etc of Sharepoint.   Far too often Sharepoint turns into nothing more than a $40K network drive to store files.  

Dotnetnuke is certainly making headway in support a "toned down" feature set that Sharepoint provides.   While versioning and Work Flow aren't apart of the core product yet there was plenty discussion about it coming.  When?  Who knows?    However, DNN does have Active Directory integration and can do a lot of things that most Intranet sites need and want.

Using Sharepoint as an Internet facing site, in my opinion (based on Sharepoint 2003) is a disaster.   On an Internet site you want to control every aspect of what is presented to the user.   Sharepoint will let you get close, but there are always those things you can't control and therefore have to live with.

Where as with Dotnetnuke it is easy to get exactly the product you want because you are in complete control over everything.

Cost alone is a huge advantage to Dotnetnuke.   A module in Dotnetnuke that has the same functionality as a Web Part in Sharepoint will cost most likely 1/10 of the price of the Web Part.

In the end the requirements should drive your decision.  However, I find it hard to ever justify a Sharepoint solution based on cost and headache of actually getting it to do what you want.

I hope that helps,
Stuart

I have developed both Web Parts and Modules and from a development standpoint Modules are much easier in my opinion.   However, I think where Sharepoint really falls its' face when used as an Internet facing site is that you simply can't hide things, that you really think should be hidden.   For instance if a person doesn't have permissions to delete a file in the Document Library then why should they see the Delete button?   In Sharepoint it will show you the delete button and then when you click on it, it will tell you you can't do it.  

These little details will drive you crazy!

Stuart