Is it possible to create a SharePoint internet site?

Question

I want to use a CMS that can be accessed by my clients via the internet. All SharePoint usage I have seen is for intranet sites only. What I am looking to do:

• Landing page for all clients, with general information.
• Client login to client specific portal page with client specific information.
• Accessible via the internet. The clients may or may not have SharePoint.
• General and client specific wikis.
• I won't be hosting this myself. I would be looking for a hosting provider as well.

I am also looking at using DotNetNuke, which has a lower cost of entry. I am open to suggestions of other CMSs, but my skills are built around C# and ASP.NET.

Before going down the SharePoint path, I wanted to make sure these things are possible.

Thanks!

Update:

Thanks to all that have given me some points to ponder. In summary, here is what I have decided to do (given my current skill set):

• SharePoint can be used for my needs (my initial question). Many great example sites.
• DotNetNuke as my CMS. I realize other good CMSs are available, but I prefer to stick to the Microsoft stack.
• Branding will be easier in DotNetNuke.
• The site will not be very big and not used by many. SharePoint will be overkill at this point.
• Many of the 'modules' I am looking to use (wiki, forum, ...) seem to have more options/maturity using DotNetNuke.

Biggest Deciding Factor

Integrating a CMS solution with my software product and then installing/implementing this solution for individual clients will have a much larger cost with SharePoint. DotNetNuke will allow me to 'leave behind' the solution with the client without having them to invest heavily in SharePoint if they do not already own it.

Thanks to all!

Ed

Answer 1

Check out the Top 17 case studies for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and several new MOSS-based web sites. There are some nice Internet websites too.

Answer 2

Kentico offers SharePoint Connector which allows to publish SharePoint content to external sites: http://www.kentico.com/cms-asp-net-features/sharepoint.aspx

Answer 3

Everything you require is supported by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, which is included at no additional cost with a Windows Server license. However, SharePoint does have an administrative and development overhead that you could avoid using a different platform. It doesn't sound like you would really be leveraging any of SharePoint's particular strengths (document management, Office client integration, ad hoc collaboration sites, etc), so it's probably not worth the extra effort.

So in short, the answer to your question is "Yes", but it's probably not your best option with these specific requirements.

Answer 4

Hi Edward, there are heaps of SharePoint sites out there facing the internet. There’s a great list of over 1,000 of them on the WSS Demo site here: http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/websites.aspx

All of the requirements you’ve listed are achievable with the externally facing SharePoint model. There’s an obvious cost impact of going down the SharePoint path versus DotNetNuke but it’s certainly achievable in terms of functionality.

Answer 5

All the things you mentioned are possible. Note that hosting a SharePoint server can be expensive. Most hosting providers charge you a dedicated server hosting plan.

Also I'm not impressed with the default wiki solution in SharePoint. You might want to consider a 3th party wiki tool and point your SharePoint Search towards it so that the results are shown in your search results. Drawback is that you loose the security trimming.

You might also be interested in the BPOS solution. A (kind of) hosting service for SharePoint that Microsoft is offering.