The Google Apps vs. Office 365 Debate Continues

- Alert) has divided Office 365 onto six plans across three tiers, with another separate tier of two plans for “kiosk workers.” In totality, one can choose from eight different plans and this can get extremely confusing. This is completely different from the Google philosophy in which the company realizes the importance of the small business user and have kept things simpler to comprehend and more affordable.

Overall cloud experience

Making a move to Office 365 can be a little tricky, and customers are also not too happy Office 365’s dependence on SharePoint Online and the desktop version of Office 2010 in order to fully utilize Office Web Apps. Google Docs lets one utilize Drive or Office Cloud Connect, if they wish to use a hybrid cloud approach to document management. Thus, it is imperative that Microsoft makes the Office 365 less dependent on its desktop cousin.

Microsoft’s legacy background is an advantage

Office 365 also has certain benefits over Google Apps, especially in relation to Microsoft’s legacy background. With Office 365, Microsoft has capitalized on its knowledge of the landscape of enterprise IT.  Google Apps also lacks certain security features and in addition Shared Contacts API doesn’t do much since shared contacts (external global contacts) is missing completely in the Google Apps Control Panel. 

Conclusion

According to Derrick Wlodarz, both Office 365 and Google Apps are worthy platforms. However, Google Apps does breathe in new energy in the cloud platform market, whereas Office 365 is still clinging to its desktop roots. Office 365 will appeal to a more niched group of Microsoft loyalists, whereas Google Apps could have more of a more mass appeal.

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Edited by Jamie Epstein
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