Google Apps vs Office 365
Why use a cloud based service?
Cloud services are becoming increasingly popular, especially among small businesses.
Cloud services are perfect for small businesses for a barrage of reasons. Just to name a few:
- They offer hassle free software; just as you would expect with any other rented service, everything is taken care of for you including maintenance, updates and security.
- Financially cloud services make sense. There is much less of an upfront cost, you can pay monthly or yearly flat rate per user.
- Anyone in the business can access the service from anywhere; home, onsite, in the office. This is not true for software that is installed directly on the computer.
- Adjustable access options, you can let your colleagues see as much or as little of your emails and work as you please. They can also contribute.
Google Apps vs. Office 365
So we have established that Cloud Services are a great way to go for many businesses, but what cloud service is best for you? Today we are comparing Office 365 and Google Apps for Business.
| Google Apps for Business | Microsoft Office 365 | |
| Emails | Gmail | Outlook |
| Word Processing | Docs | Word |
| Spreadsheets | Sheets | Excel |
| Calendar | Yes – integrated with email | Yes – Integrated with email |
| Storage | Drive | Skydrive |
| Webpages | Sites | Sharepoints |
| Social Networks | Google+ | So.cl |
From the off you can see they have very similar cloud capabilities. Today we are going to focus on the main concerns of many of our clients when making the move to a cloud solution; capabilities, email and price.
Emails
| Office 365 – Outlook | Google apps for business – Gmail |
| Allows emails to be grouped into folders and subfolders | Multiple labels and sublabels |
| Opens a new pop-up window when user is reading or creating email | Great integration with Google’s other services |
| Can manage multiple email addresses from the same account | Gmail will offer to translate foreign language emails |
| Start voice or video calls | |
| Can respond to emails in an editable text box at the bottom of the email or you can open an in tab window | |
| Can manage multiple email addresses from the same account (can also set different signatures for each address) | |
| Can set permissions and invite colleagues to have full access to your mailboxes |
Comparing the Email abilities of each platform, you can see that depending on your needs both will cover the basic bases. However, Google Apps does have an edge in the fact that you can allow colleagues access to your mailbox, meaning delegation and monitoring is much easier.
Calendars
| Office 365 | Google apps for business |
| Integrated with email | Integrated with email |
| Manage and view multiple calendars | Manage and view multiple calendars |
| Colour coded all calendars show up on the same screen but are easy to distinguish | Colour coded all calendars show up on the same screen but are easy to distinguish |
| Can set reminders for events and notifications for event changes | Can set reminders for events and notifications for event changes |
As we can see from this comparison, the calendar capabilities are parallel. Both cater for everything you could need in a calendar.
Microsoft Office 365 package options
We offer packages for Office 365 from £8.40 – £15.00 per month per user.
The packages we have found to be most beneficial to our clients are:
| Office 365 Small Business Premium | Office 365 Midsize Business | Office 365 Enterprise E3 |
| Up to 25 users | Up to 300 users | Unlimited users |
| Business-class email | Business-class email | Business-class email |
| Online conferencing | Online conferencing | Active Directory integration |
| Public website | Public website | File storage and sharing |
| File storage and sharing | File storage and sharing | Online conferencing |
| Office Online | Office Online | Enterprise social |
Desktop Versions of          |
Desktop Versions of |
Office Online |
| Active Directory integration | Desktop Versions of |
|
| Self-service Business Intelligence | eDiscovery Center | |
| Enterprise social |
Office 365 is a great option purely for the fact that if you purchase it you do not need to buy Microsoft Office. It also reduces the change of upheaval because many companies currently use Outlook and will be familiar with Microsoft’s services.
Google Apps for business package options
We offer Google Apps for Business packages are between £5 and £8.50
| Google Apps for Business | Google Apps for Business and More |
| Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Hangouts, Sites | Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Hangouts, Sites, vaul |
| Customised email addresses for your domain | Customised email addresses for your domain |
| 30 GB Gmail and Drive Storage | Unlimited (or 1TB for 5 users or less) Gmail and Drive Storage |
| Video chat, calendar and document editing | Video chat, calendar and document editing |
| 99.9% uptime guarantee | 99.9% uptime guarantee |
| Unlimited users | Unlimited users |
| Business controls and security | Business controls and security |
| Advanced auditing controls | |
| eDiscovery covering emails, chats, docs and files | |
| Archive all emails with easy search and export for legal discovery |
Google apps is fantastic for delegation, setting permissions and access on Google apps is incredibly easy and so if you need members of the company to have access to each others mailboxes, calendars and documents then this is a great option.
Google Apps for Business vs. Office 365 – What is best for you?
As a company we have found that Google Apps works for us on a number of levels. We have found it incredibly easy as users and it suits us perfectly. However, there is not a standard rule for whether Office 365 or Google Apps is better because it depends on you and your company. If you would like to discuss either Google Apps or Office 365 then please get in contact and we can help you see if either option would work for you – 02380 249 820
