Help us get to 365! Many of you have asked us to list all 365 reasons to consider Google Apps. We'd like to hear yours- add them here http://goo.gl/Az5Yb, and check back for the results later this week!
Tomorrow Microsoft is launching Office 365. Many of you have asked for our perspective, so we thought we’d share some thoughts to help you make an informed choice.
Technology inevitably gets more complicated as it gets older. Upgrading platforms and adding features results in systems that are increasingly difficult to manage and complex to use. At times like these, it's worth considering a clean-slate: an approach based on entirely modern technologies, designed for today’s world.
Here are some things to think about as you compare Google Apps and Office 365:
Designed for Teams
Office 365 is for individuals. Apps is for teams.
Most of us no longer spend our days working on our own. We work with others: creating, collaborating, sharing.
With Apps you can work with multiple people in the same document. There’s no need to
worry about whether or not it’s possible to share a spreadsheet, or co-edit a presentation. You can see people type in real time, and share a file in just two clicks. Discussions bring people into your documents for rich conversations. You don’t need to buy additional licenses to work with others, or hope people outside your company have upgraded to the same software. If you have a Google account, you can collaborate.
“We’ve shaved eight weeks off of the end-to-end budgeting process using Google Docs, which translates into close to 30% time savings,” said Michael Rodger, Delta’s Director of Digital Innovation.
Productive Anywhere
Office 365 is built for Microsoft. Apps is built for choice.
Office 365 is optimized for Windows-based PCs and devices, which reduces your flexibility. Our applications are designed to work well on any device, on any operating system. Desktop, laptop, Chromebook, tablet, smartphone. Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Blackberry, iOS, Windows Mobile. Edit on the go. Share from anywhere. Start on your computer, move to your tablet, finish on your phone. When the web is the platform, it just works.
“The initial reason we looked at Google Apps was cost savings, but the on-going value of access to information from anywhere totally independent of the device is where we're seeing the real gain,” said Scot Adams, the CIO of Cadillac Fairview.
Simple & Affordable
Office 365 is 11 different plans, three editions and two tiers. Apps is $5/month with no commitment.
Google Apps for Business and five of eleven Microsoft Office 365 plans
(Click image to expand)
We have a single, transparent, low price that meets everyone’s needs, and it hasn’t changed in 4 years. There’s no extras for basics like phone support and robust productivity apps. No long term contracts or opaque enterprise agreements.
We also don’t lock you in. By design, we make it as easy as possible for you to move off of Google Apps if you want. We have a dedicated team of engineers whose sole goal is to help you get your data in and out of our products for free. We believe that the way to keep you long term is to continue to innovate and make our products better so that you choose to stay with us.
Pure & Proven Cloud
Office 365 is about the desktop. Apps is about the web.
Google Apps are accessed in a browser. There’s no client software to install, secure and maintain. Upgrades and years of patience aren’t necessary to get access to the latest innovation, just click refresh. Our customers received more than 125 new features in the last year alone.
Running a reliable and secure cloud-based service is challenging and requires you to rethink everything. This year Gmail has been available 99.99 percent of the time, which translates to less than 5 minutes of downtime per month. That includes all downtime, planned and unplanned, of any duration, for any and all users. We make zero exceptions when calculating our uptime, and we’re transparent with you in the rare cases when things go wrong.
You can't just take legacy, desktop software, move some of it to a data center and call it "cloud." Apps was born for the web and we've been serving hundreds of millions of users for years.
Ok, we didn’t get to all 365 reasons here today, but we hope we gave you some things to think about. Ultimately, we have a fundamentally different vision for the future of software. That’s good, because it provides a clear choice. Before you invest ten years in the past, we’d humbly encourage you to invest ten minutes in today by checking out why so many businesses have chosen Google Apps.
Apps isn’t for everyone. But in the last week alone 38,000 businesses decided to give it a try. Maybe you should too.
59 comments:
Great article. I look forward to seeing some competition between both products, which only makes the end user the winner. I for one am sticking with Google Apps!
We need private templates for Google Apps Standard Edition, not only public as now!
Love it!
Nice Job on this post.
One point of contention... you need to have a line for offline editing in your productivity anywhere section of your comparison png. You don't yet have true universal access. I had a problem with Comcast and I don't tether my phone. I could no longer get access to any of the material I was working on. The Enterprise will be reluctant to adopt a technology that can't sync on and offline.
I think that Apple with a combo of Local Apps, Time Capsule, Airport, and iCloud, is a good model. If Google Apps could behave like Evernote, you would have the killer solution.
www.vesselhead.com
This article is so full of holes it's pathetic! It's quite clear that the author doesn't have a clue what Office 365 is, how to use it, or why there are different plans. You'll note that there is no support for legacy programs in Google Apps. I highly suspect that last sentence is incorrect and should be something along the line that, "....38,000 business users....", not 38,000 businesses. Thanks for the insight, but I will stick with Microsoft.
Fair article.. I agree with @68bomer tho.. Need offline access.. and @bill I think it is clear that you are a microsoft fan.. Nothing wrong with that!! Just that I think the author has made a fair point an while the comparison may be biased, it is not 'so full of holes'!
A Google Apps show-stopper is inability to switch the Primary Domain, because Google uses it as the account ID. This is a show-stopper because companies change: names change, projects change, domains change. Being locked into the original domain is beyond bizarre, it is totally inept.
Microsoft Office 365 allow any domain a company might own to be used, or later changed.
Google allows change too: Create a new Apps account and start over! Nope, we'll just go with a company that understands that the customer's permanent account ID should not be tied to ANYTHING the customer might want to later change. Basic practice of computer systems for 40 years...except for Google.
Looovvveee it. Microsoft continues to push their agenda. They are not a company you want to partner with for "any device, anywhere, anytime" kind of thinking that is tomorrow.
Select Microsoft if you are happy with the same old 90s way of thinking.
I've used both and our company has done a long term review of both. Microsoft wins hands down for features, etc. Google is right in much of what they say, but tell our accounting team or the quants that they have to use Google Docs instead of Excel and we would have a rebellion on our hands.
Also, one very very important fact that Google leaves out, there will be very nice integration between the desktop apps and the web apps. Right now I can use my desktop Excel, save it directly to the cloud, and then use my web access when I am on a computer that does not have the full blown Excel app.
For some price matters. For others, features count and Google has a long way to go before they can compete in that area.
IT's pathetic.. whatever is given in the above article is not on facts... and I don't know from where the author has fetch the information... there is no comparison between Office 365 and GAPPS, as O365 is far ahead from GAPPS. Google people have to raise their standards of services to reach at par to Microsoft O365.
Bill, enlighten us, why are there different plans.
Enterprise is willing to try out the cloud model which is the future, but it will not be willing to go for a solution: which
1. does not repect legacy,
2. does not provide offline access,
3. does not provide offline productivity tools.
Silly you missed out on that one ! biased article.
Google.. first get Word document rendering correct then talk about others.
Office 365 is for enterprises just as much as small teams. The offline/online Office 365 vision works for more people the online only Google apps model.
Microsoft also has seamless federation with online and cloud systems...as well as hosted SIP Unified Messaging with their email. Microsoft gives busines a choice, cloud or on premise. With Google, it's just cloud religion/marketing as demonstrated in this article.
With 90% of Google's business search...you will do anything for more eyeballs. Can I buy ads on my competitors employees email accounts next year?
John G.
I have a lot of respect for Google, but it's gone down a notch after reading this poorly conceived post.
I know you're trying to be smart, but 365 reasons and then not giving that many?
@Bill(Gates?) It's quite clear that you don't have a clue about Google Apps or how to use it; the author is Google App's Product Manager, I'm sure he's quite versed in the competition. What have legacy programs got to do with Google Apps?! The whole idea of applications in the cloud is to move away for the need of desktop programs, Office 365 still suggests the use of a desktop program with their online suite in a desperate attempt to prevent their desktop sales going down the pan.
Is the author 100% certain that Live365 *requires* client apps to run? I've seen the demo, running on Mac OSX, and am not currently using Office 2011...
I do get a chuckle that it uses Flash elements, but HTML5 basis for Google Apps seals the deal for us and our clients. Now just get offline HTML5 running and available and we can enjoy it more.
This will be an interesting Q3/Q4 to 2011. Want to see how users migrate out of BPOS, as well as how Live365 infrastructure holds up vs Google Apps. Let the games begin!
You can't deny that Microsoft has had it's day, cloud based services are the in-thing and yet again Microsoft are sorely lacking in this department.
How about the uptime for GApps? Don't just quote the GMail. GApps is not just Gmail. How can I decide?
Can you provide a feature-by-feature comparison of GApps vs. Office365 when they launch? It will really help us, than just telling 125 features added last year.
What about the ugly user interface of google docs?
I want a nice user interface and the ability to create good looking documents, did anyone at google thought of that?
It is unfortunate but true that we can't always count on being connected. Offline access is a requirement. I do agree that the use of an application platform that is built for collaboration is key in being successful for the enterprise.
Google is always the best!
It works well on any linux box too, with open, fair standards. And perfect for business too!
Totally agree with Bill and most important thing is Support. You name any product of Microsoft you got 24/7 support, but you can't say the same about Google.
If you open up a new business or running existing business, you got everything in Office 365 a business need.
As a relatively happy google apps user going to have to say, most of this article is total FUD.
Google, with App's have been doing little development/innovation wise since after initial release, to the point that i would say their applications (Document,spreadsheet so forth) are not suitable for any even semi serious user. In most cases we still revert to using our local installs of office for proper document generation.
Only real strength google has is their mail application, not only is the web client good but it is also something many people will be familiar with from their personal use. The rest is "bla" at best
If Google don't want to be wiped out in the online application cloud they need to pull out all the stops ASAP and not waste time on crap like this article.
That isn't exatly 365 ways to consider, so therefore I would like refund on my pun. Hovever, dont get me wrong I am sold on Apps; I am most likely a Googler for LYFE. 24/7 365 and 1/4.
So Where is the 365 reasons ? & I also agree with Bill, do some research & understand the product before making a blog post on it
Bill, which software company relies on legacy programs?
As for legacy support, my setup pushes data from old Borland/Delphi databases and hideous proprietary DOS-based software to Google Spreadsheets constantly. 365 doesn't support pushing any kind of data, let alone that stored by older, expensive data acquisition equipment.
Bill is so pathetic.
@Bill, you said: "the author doesn't have a clue what Office 365 is"
The author Shan Sinha is a former Microsoft SharePoint and SQL Server strategist... :-)
funny how inaccurate this article is... But hey, its posted by google. They will not tell you that their's is better and ask you to go and buy their products!
Google Apps don't promote a convicted monopoly, one that participated in the Intel CPU tax, and one that worked to reduce consumer choice down to zero.
That alone is reason enough for me to give Google my five bucks.
One -1 to apps. You can't continue using legacy interfaces like docs main page evenly if you think the new version is a badgrade.
In any other way: I <3 Apps
Hello Bill you might be wrong Say 38,000 business users in your view as a Microsoft user. As for Google apps its for a team so its a business customers. They are right
1- You cannot double click on a Google document on your desktop and open it in Google Docs.
2- You can’t store the Google document on your desktop and edit it offline with Google Docs.
3- You cannot create any good looking document using Google Docs.
4- Google docs is all about algorithms and what is the best way for many people to edit a document at the same time, that is nice, but honestly, how many people at Google edit documents at the same time? And what about all other features that the normal user wants?
5- Google docs is all about a simple almost blank web page with a menu in it, Microsoft Office has a nice user interface, a helpful one, Google Docs UI is frozen back in 1995!
6- Microsoft Word 95 (and maybe Word 6.0) has more document editing capabilities than Google Docs 2011 (except the multiple user editing), it has the things a normal user wants!
7- Microsoft is going to integrate html5 with the Windows 8 desktop, end to end integration, Google does not care about the local user desktop, in other words there is no real chance to get a feature like double click on a file on the desktop and open it in docs, Google does not believe in the desktop at all, look at Google Chrome OS!
8- Google must keep a copy of your data, which is a modern way of thinking, if you want to keep a copy on a third server, or your server, it is considered an outdated way of thinking!
Some people will go Google Docs, including some of my documents, but I still use Microsoft Office to write and spell-check and grammar check this post, imagine how would have looked like if I purely wrote it in Google Docs.
User confidence: Although Google may have its problems, when it comes down to trust, I find that Google's "Do no harm" is by and large adhered to, whereas with Microsoft I am almost assured to be on the receiving end of a profit-margin stick.
"...the author doesn't have a clue... why there are different plans." Let me take a stab at it; to maximize Microsoft's revenue?
I use Google docs etc (but not Apps - yet) and wanted to take a look at Office 365 - but guess what? I need silverlight to "see how it works" which I don't have. So I switch from Chrome into
IE9 thinking this may be quicker (wrong) only to be told Silverlight may not work for 64 bit blah blah.
Think one reason could be the web integration with gdocs and google api's. Can an office spreadsheet measure the distance from your house to the place suggested by the ip of the entering client? With a bit of javascript you can make gdocs tapdance...
Problem is profiles arent available for Google apps users and you cant create shared contact list. Any idea when this will get fixed?
Lets wait for time and the market to decide. Remember VHS versus Beta cassettes?
Love the article!! Its really informative
Bill,
Google Apps, has the best support for both Legacy formats, ODF and can read PDFs and can save to back to these formats. Which is something that 365 can't do.
Also it's actually it is 38,000 businesses, because one this is a Google blog, and which means that the guy works for google, and because they have over 3 million businesses signed up.
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html
Google Apps allows you to manage documents from anywhere, anytime, any device. Something that 365 doesn't do.
Our university campus uses gmail as it's email systems, and it has done for the last 2 years.
I my self have transfered 7 customers to gmail and google docs.
I however haven't heard anyone use Office 365, which is why I think you are a Microsoft employee.
I am not saying that Google is perfect, because it's very hard to do things like page borders or write a resume in as it doesn't have support for headers and footers, but given that 365 doesn't support such things it's ok.
So I as well my 7 clients will stick with Google.
I do consider to immigrate to Office 365, it's looks more polish, and very nice looking. I'm using google apps since three years, and still working with my desktop office suit although I really tried hard to work only on the cloud. The offline ability is must, the air-connectivity is not yet as the industry talk about it. I also use salesforce, and must admit that I miss offline which is not available for WM7, IE9 at all, but these two air-services are great examples that in order to have good suit and integration between them, it must use MS Outlook. without outlook both services are useless!. which means that there are no differences which online service I will use, the link will be Outlook, and daily work will be done with office suit.
Also, I never got used to Tags, I still prefer the filing system like Outlook, Yahoo, etc'. The biggest problems starts when I need to search for an attachment, which takes long time with tag system.
Last, we also like the product to visually look nice. When I start the application, I like my eyes to relax, and it should not be look so technical. I spent daily 12 hours, on my PC, and like to feel relax not stressful, and seems to me that MS did better job with Office365 in this aspect.
Thanks for reading my post.
Isaac
I would agree with Bill.
Also you are comparing a product that has been in existence for sometime (4+ years ~Feb 2007 I guess) vs one that was launched yesterday.
After an year this would be a very fair comparison, as ecosystem would have evolved for MS Office 365 as well.
As consultants, we are recommending Google Apps strongly to our clients. The comparison chart between 365 and Google Apps is timely and quite reasonable. Many of our customers are running Google Apps Standard Edition and some of them are planning for the business edition.
Here's a reason not to:
Google Profiles aren't available yet.
And Because of that, Google+1 will not be available yet.
And because of that... Please, be quick.
I totally agree with Bill, this post it's a bit pathetic. Microsoft products are not perfect at all, but these facts are quite ridiculous...
Microsoft sells the access. Google will close your account without explanation (only an email) when Google want.
Not to put Google down, but Office 365 IS about the web and does work on any browser and therefore many platforms, just as Google Apps does. Shan, did you miss this somehow? Several statements in here seem like you haven't really used Office 365 in order to provide a solid comparison and defense (2nd example: not built for sharing?).
I look forward to comparing the two products, and I suspect that the more successful product will be the one with the best user interface and experience.
Keep pushing things forward, Google!
As a google app authorized reseller i have my bet with google, however besides large corporations going the virtualization line with Citrix, the question remains will the rest trust Msft more to store their sensitive data? I like to see some competition, who participated in the msft 365 beta will know what a slow dog they bring to the race track, no good. Keep on doin your magic Google!
1 Reason not to:
Compatibility. I'm not talking about compatibility outside Google, I'm talking about compatibility with Google's own offerings. Take for example Google+ it can't be used with GApps accounts. It's a fundamental flaw with Google's strategy. Gapps users get left out.
I like Google and don't think this article is OK. It's not Google culture to say bad things of competitors, or at least so I thought.
>"You can't just take legacy, desktop software, move some of it to a data center and call it "cloud.""
Ridiculous!
From my understanding, Office 365 is just microsoft exchange without the need to purchase a server and microsoft exchange software. After I quite my job and started my own business I looked quite extensively into getting exchange for just email and calendar, but the costs were too high via thrid party hosting services. I now use gmail and gcalander and sync my office stuff with sugarsync. I suspect that I will keep sugar sync, but I will most definitely switch over to office 365.
Btw, I have no idea what sharepoint is, since my pervious company didn't use sharepoint.
I only wish google apps had a conectivity with other cloud services (like dropbox) among with more features in the suite
I wish that google apps would had integration with other services such as Dropbox and it would had more features
It would be really nice if you added support for Profiles and Buzz. If you at least could say how the progress is going or/and when you think it would be added.
MSFT's rebuttal - http://blogs.technet.com/b/whymicrosoft/archive/2011/06/21/why-are-small-businesses-choosing-office-365-over-google-apps_3f00_.aspx
I think Office 365 wins this one. :)
Well, if you added profile support to Google Apps then you could possibly add some reasons...but until then, thanks for telling my about Office 365, will have to check it out.
I luv Google docs. I wud like to see more features in word processor that can help me create attratively formatted word documents in less time. Currently the formatting options available are very basic.
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