The SharePoint and Office 365 Industry Survey

The purpose of this article to take a deep look at how the uses of SharePoint and Office 365 have been shaping up. SharePoint a web-based collaborative data management and sharing tool was developed in 2001. At that time, its adoption was not envisaged to take a positive form. Businesses and organizations have been integrating these tools into their workspace.

In 2017, the rate of the Microsoft SharePoint deployments increased significantly according to a research by rcpmag. Sharegate, Hyperfish, and Nintex who are SharePoint tools suppliers in early 2018 released a SharePoint and Office 365 industry survey that points out the rapid adoption of the data sharing and management tools by several offices, and IT professionals. Data were gathered from these different organizations and the SharePoint supplying companies carried out an extensive survey in 2016. This was used to compare the 2018 survey to determine the deployment of SharePoint and office 365.

Between 2016 and 2017, SharePoint online deployments ballooned to a satisfying rate at 167%. According to the survey carried out in 2016, only 21% of the respondents had deployed SharePoint online. The number of the respondents increased to 56% in 2017. Despite this impressive utilization of SharePoint, many versions of it such as on-premise SharePoint were run parallel.

Another survey carried out in 2016 showed the increased trust reposed in SharePoint online by many users. One-fifth of users in 2016 had migrated and moved all their data to the cloud. In 2017, this number increased by 31% depicting the positive rate of its adoption. The sole adoption of SharePoint online increased while the hybrid environment, such as the simultaneous usage of on-premises SharePoint and SharePoint online deployments, decreased significantly.

 

In a vendor survey on the Active Directory survey, the migration of companies and different organization’s workloads became palpable. In the Ad deployments in 2016, the on-premises deployment increased by 51%. The number declined by t0 42% in 2017.

In the release of newer versions of on-premise SharePoint, there has been increased adoption. For example, SharePoint 201 witnessed a 67% rise in deployments between 2016 and 2017. This goes to suggest that newer versions were more deployed than older versions. The survey on older versions was not conducted, as they are available in limited number. Statistically, there is no record of their adoption and their deployment cannot be described.

SharePoint 2013 alongside SharePoint 2013 is recording and maintaining a significant increase of share. 66% of respondents’ sites deployed SharePoint 2013. SharePoint 2013 in 2018 has not been able to retain its lead. 82% of business organizations are still using SharePoint 2013 while 61% are running their workload on a hybrid platform.

SharePoint 2007 seemed to be the most used by respondents’ sites in 2017. This increased deployment in 2017 dropped from 20% by 2% to 18%. The on-premise SharePoint that witnessed the most decline is SharePoint 2010, which recorded a percentage drop from 48% to 40%.

Some of the factors that contributed to the deployment of the various versions of SharePoint include security, costs and the difficulties in migrating from one version to another according to customizations preferences.

The mode of business technology performed using Office 365 has been changed and enhanced by Microsoft. The influence that Office 365 will have on business productivity was not calculated. From the day of release of this Microsoft tool, its adoption has been increasing. A survey carried out recently, in 2018, showed that Office 365 has been experiencing an increasing adoption.

Office 365 has changed the mode cloud technology operates. Conversely, this has impacted and swayed lots of users into adopting this technology. Office 365 is a game changer in the cloud service industry let us look at how this tool has occupied the market.

A huge contributing factor to the adoption of Office 365 is that Microsoft put in place a policy that allows users to rent the service instead of buying. This has led many businesses adopting Office 365 to be on the rise. Mostly, 9 out of every 10 employees uses the office 365. Another contributing factor to the increased usage is the integration of innovative features such as offering 1 TB storage capacity to all Office 365 users. This feature has been helping Microsoft to gain huge users of their cloud service.

Office 365 integrated with OneDrive is the most used business tool in 2018. A survey carried out 79% usage rate was recorded where a minimum of 100 users was considered. The highest adoption rate of Office 365 was seen amongst organizations that offer financial services. OneDrive for business uses most of this application with 39.3% users. Skype for Business also uses this application with 17.3% active users. In addition, the media and manufacturing industries are rapidly adopting this application. Office 365 has a high rate of users in the healthcare industry. A considerable amount of resources has been channeled into this application to make it appealing.

 

SharePoint and Office 365 has been gaining huge trust which has been leading to its total adoption by different organizations.

“Security is much more robust in the cloud – we can no longer argue against this. As our end users demand more from what we offer, the move is inevitable for most. Also, Microsoft’s Office 365 usage numbers seem to double each year, with SharePoint now leading in not one, but two Magic Quadrants.”
Benjamin Niaulin, Microsoft Regional Director & Product Advisor at Sharegate

These include ease of migration and security. Research has shown that data stored on either of these platforms are properly secured. Work and resources have been put into them to ensure that security is enhanced. Newer versions of SharePoint and Office 365 have a reinforced security system that offers users a better protection of their workload.

“Very few (12%) had integrations with other systems to keep Active Directory up-to-date. This is usually because the system of record for profile information such as Job Title, Department and Manager is not Active Directory. For this reason, the most common systems to integrate with Active Directory are Human Resource Management Systems.”
Jeremy Thake, VP of Product Technology at Hyperfish