I know, I know.. dead horse, but hear me out.

I work for a state department that works with many agencies (extranet). We have a website and an intranet, so we need the whole deal, but the most important aspect is the extranet (our agencies). Our web front for those agencies is very document- and event-centric (aka, intranet-centric) but also requires many web pages and internet components. What i mean to say is that this is more an intranet-ish extranet than an internet-ish one.

I've used DNN, WSS, and SPS.

* DNN rocks in web pages. Our dept. employees figured it out in a heart-beat, and I was able to skin it as fast. However, it seems to lack in document collaboration, which is important. I can upload documents, but without versioning. The survey is either radio or checkbox (i'm not kidding), and there's no office integration (not THAT important, but something at least worth noting).
* WSS, on the other hand, is great for document collaboration, but that's it. It seems impossible to milk a website out of. Every tab is a page devoted to document lists (i can't make standard web pages that aren't themselves documents in a list), and it almost "requires" office to function at all (not a safe assumption for our agencies). I can't skin it for the life of me, and our employees can't figure it out. What makes me hang on to it, though, is its document system. Document collaboration with our agencies is VERY important.
* SPS for internet sites is what I REALLY want. it's got great WCM capabilities, AND all that intranet/extranet stuff we need. It's not going to happen. $40k is way too much, I'm just using it as a reference in this analysis to determine which (DNN vs. WSS) comes closer to this ideal.

So i guess I'm asking this. for those of you who know DNN, is it feasible to use it as an intranet ECM comparable to WSS? and for those of you who know WSS, is it feasible to use it as a WCM comparable to DNN? and for those of you who know both, which should I pick? :)

Also, DNN is only VB, but our developers only do C# (they're old bureaucrats, no changing their ways). Is there no way to put C# modules in a DNN site?

First, C# plays fine with VB.Net. It is only an issue of politics, not something serious developers need get hung up about.

2nd, what is SPS?

3rd, regarding documet collaboration, have you seen:

http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Community/Forums/tabid/795/forumid/112/threadid/146507/scope/posts/Default.aspx

and

http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Community/Forums/tabid/795/forumid/112/threadid/147829/scope/posts/Default.aspx

as both claim to do quality document workflow stuff. I've zero experience with them myself though...

The Core Repository module is totally cool and does much more than advertised. Also X-Mod is a very poweful 3rd party module that seems to provide some options if you have a spare developer willing to learn it...

---

- John
www.VashonSoftware.com

Let me throw in my 2 cents.

I've worked with SharePoint WSS (1.x, so my arguments for/against it are dated and I'll just leave them out) and I've worked with DNN.

I agree that WSS/SPS is absolutely great when it comes to all the document management, collaboration, etc, especially with it's 100% integration with ALL Office Products (infopath, outlook, etc).  We had a Microsoft rep out to our company the other day trying to get us to use it because our corporate licensing actually already provides it for us.  Turns out that v2.x (the latest variety) worked out all of the hangups that 1.x had.  I used to hate WSS with a passion!

As mentioned previously, there is no reason why DNN can't have those capabilities either.  The problem is that nobody has really sat down and created a module to do it that good.  WSS/SPS are great because they have it "out of the box".  DNN is great because it is generally free (aside from the large commercial module base), but even those items that aren't free are very affordable.  Case in point, our previous intranet provider recently recently a forms module for their portal with an "introductory price" of $3k.  DNN has SEVERAL forms providers out there ranging from $30 to $200, but they are pretty freaking nice (IMHO, the higher price ones are nicer... the lower cost ones tend to be lacking).

DNN core, of course as mentioned, is VB... I am a C# developer personally and have developed in excess of 15 modules for DNN--they plug in nicely and play nicely, lots of good articles about that, but I suggest you use the WAP model for integrating them.

Lastly, have you ever actually tried to use Microsoft support for anything?  They suck.  The DNN community is vast and although many questions go unanswered, at least they try.  I've had to call Microsoft support on various occasions because my superiors asked me to "give it a try" and every single time I came back with less brain cells than I started.  In every case I ended up solving the problem on my own using some nice Googling because their techs were too dang dense or their english was so freaking bad either I couldn't understand them or they couldn't understand me. My experience with DNN "support" has been much better.

Am I saying that I'd prefer one over the other?  Sure, in this current place in time, I prefer DNN.  Am I saying that I'll never consider SPS/WSS again?  No, not particularly.  If DNN can't deliver a document management system to compare with what WSS/SPS has, I may see myself moving to it in the next couple of years as the older employees retire and we replace them with younger blood whose minds could comprehend that sort of thing (no joke).

WSS is possible to pull a website out of though... check out some I did with my previous job:

http://www.mympa.org/default.aspx

http://www.cohousing.org

That was with the crappy old 1.x variety too.  Pain in the buttholio though.

---

-- Jon Seeley
DotNetNuke Modules
Custom DotNetNuke and .NET Development
http://www.seeleyware.com