WHAT DO OFFICE 365 AND G SUITE DO?

Office 365 and G Suite are a suite of productivity tools that let you perform
common business tasks 'in the cloud'. Up until recently, G Suite was called
Google Apps for Work, and many users and prospective users still refer to the
product suite simply as as Google Apps.

Both Office 365 and G Suite allow you to create documents, spreadsheets and
presentations and collaborate with team members whilst doing so; they also
provide video conferencing functionality and cloud storage.

Office 365 G Suite

Allow you to create documents,
spreadsheets and presentations and
collaborate with team members
Provide video conferencing
functionality and cloud storage.
Business Essentials - $6 per user per
month
Basic: $5 per user per month ($50 per
user per year if paid annually)
1. Business email addresses
(yourname@yourcompany.com)
2. Video and voice calls
3. Shared online calendars
4. Online documents,
spreadsheets and slides
5. 30 GB of online storage for file
syncing and sharing
6. Project sites (a way to build
simple websites or intranet)
7. Security and admin controls
8. 24/7 phone and email support

Business - $10 per user per month

Business Premium - $15 per user per

month

Enterprise E1 - $8 per user per month
(requires annual commitment)
Business: $10 per user per month
($120 per user per year if paid
annually)
1. Unlimited file storage (or 1 TB if
your organisation has less than
5 users)
2. Audit and reporting insights for
Drive content and sharing
3. eDiscovery covering emails,
chats, docs and files
4. Email archives / message-
 retention policies

Enterprise Pro Plus - $12 per user per
month (requires annual commitment)
Enterprise E3 - $20 per user per
month (requires annual commitment)
Enterprise E5 - $35 per user per
month (requires annual commitment)
5. Enterprise: prices available
upon request from Google
data loss prevention for files
and email
6. integration with third party
tools
7. advanced admin controls and
security
8. additional reporting on email
usage via BigQuery
9. For most users, the most
significant difference between
these plans will involve file
storage.
10.With the G Suite 'Basic' plan,
users are restricted to 30GB of
file storage; but - so long as
there are 5 or more G Suite
users in your organisation -
there are no limits on the
'Business' plan (if you have a
'Business' plan but have less
than 5 users on it, file storage is
restricted to 1TB per user)

Its important to note that Google

Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drawings -
i.e. documents created using Googles
set of apps rather than third party
applications - dont count toward your
G Suite file storage limit. Neither do
files shared with you by other Google
Drive users.

Power users and big organisations

are likely to find the e-Discovery
features that the 'Business' and
'Enterprise' plans come with handy -
these lets you archive all
communications in your organisation
according to rules you define. This
may be useful if for legal reasons you
need to store an extensive
communications history.
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OFFICE 365 VS GOOGLE APPS (G SUITE) 2017 - AN IN-DEPTH COMPARISON
REVIEW
February 13, 2017
by Chris Singleton
Office 365 vs Google Apps
Office 365 vs Google Apps (or, as we should now call it, G Suite)...which is
better? This is a question that many businesses, particularly startups, have
trouble answering.

In this post Im going to try to help you decide which is best for your business, by
putting the two product suites head to head in a detailed comparison review.
Read on to see how G Suite and Office 365 fare against each other in the key
areas of pricing, features and ease-of use. Well explore all the pros and cons of
each product in depth and explain why, and when, you might want to use one
over the other. Let's start by taking a look at what these products actually let you
do.

WHAT DO OFFICE 365 AND G SUITE DO?

Office 365 and G Suite are a suite of productivity tools that let you perform
common business tasks 'in the cloud'. Up until recently, G Suite was called
Google Apps for Work, and many users and prospective users still refer to the
product suite simply as as Google Apps.

Both Office 365 and G Suite allow you to create documents, spreadsheets and
presentations and collaborate with team members whilst doing so; they also
provide video conferencing functionality and cloud storage.

PRICING - HOW DO G SUITE AND OFFICE 365 COMPARE?

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G SUITE
Choosing a G Suite plan is relatively straightforward, as there are only three
plans available:

Basic: $5 per user per month ($50 per user per year if paid annually)
Business: $10 per user per month ($120 per user per year if paid annually)
Enterprise: prices available upon request from Google.
On the 'Basic' plan, you get

Business email addresses (yourname@yourcompany.com)

Video and voice calls
Shared online calendars
Online documents, spreadsheets and slides
30 GB of online storage for file syncing and sharing
Project sites (a way to build simple websites or intranet)
Security and admin controls
24/7 phone and email support.
On the 'Business' plan, in addition to the above you get

Unlimited file storage (or 1 TB if your organisation has less than 5 users)
Audit and reporting insights for Drive content and sharing
eDiscovery covering emails, chats, docs and files
Email archives / message-retention policies
On the 'Enterprise' plan, you get all the features of the 'Basic' and 'Business'
plans plus

data loss prevention for files and email

integration with third party tools
advanced admin controls and security
additional reporting on email usage via BigQuery
For most users, the most significant difference between these plans will involve
file storage. With the G Suite 'Basic' plan, users are restricted to 30GB of file
storage; but - so long as there are 5 or more G Suite users in your organisation -
there are no limits on the 'Business' plan (if you have a 'Business' plan but have
less than 5 users on it, file storage is restricted to 1TB per user).

Its important to note that Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drawings - i.e.
documents created using Googles set of apps rather than third party
applications - dont count toward your G Suite file storage limit. Neither do files
shared with you by other Google Drive users.

Power users and big organisations are likely to find the e-Discovery features
that the 'Business' and 'Enterprise' plans come with handy - these lets you
archive all communications in your organisation according to rules you define.
This may be useful if for legal reasons you need to store an extensive
communications history.

I suspect that prospective G Suite users will be a little alarmed to see that data
loss tools are only included with the most expensive Enterprise plans. If you want
to back up a 'Basic' or 'Business' G Suite plan, you'll need to invest in a third
party tool such as Backupify.

MICROSOFT OFFICE 365 PRICING

The pricing options for Office 365 are more complicated, because there are
home, business, enterprise and education versions available. For the purposes of
this review however, Im going to focus on the 'Business' and 'Enterprise' plans,
which are:

Business Essentials - $6 per user per month

Business - $10 per user per month
Business Premium - $15 per user per month
Enterprise E1 - $8 per user per month (requires annual commitment)
Enterprise Pro Plus - $12 per user per month (requires annual commitment)
Enterprise E3 - $20 per user per month (requires annual commitment)
Enterprise E5 - $35 per user per month (requires annual commitment).
As you might expect, there are a lot of different options to get your head around
with the above 7 plans, but a few important things to note are as follows:

The Business plans let you pay on a rolling per-month basis; the Enterprise
ones do not - you have to pay upfront for a year. This means that if your
workforce tends to shrink or grow throughout the year, the Business plans
might be more suitable for your organisation.
The Business plans all limit the maximum number of users to 300.
All plans provide you with with the desktop versions of the Microsoft Office
product suite (Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.) except for the Business Essentials
and Enterprise E1 plans, which only provide the online ones. So if a key
motivation behind choosing Office 365 is to avail of the desktop apps as well as
the cloud features, make sure you avoid those particular plans.
Not all of the Office 365 plans provide users with an email account - if you want
to use Office 365 as your email service provider, youll need to steer clear of the
Business 365 and the Enterprise Pro Plus plans.
Similarly, the Business and Enterprise Pro Plus plans dont feature calendar
functionality.
The three Business plans listed above come in a bit cheaper if you commit to
paying upfront for a year.
So which works out cheaper in the Office 365 vs G Suite fight?
The most directly comparable G Suite and Office 365 plans are arguably

the G Suite Basic ($5 per user per month) and Office 365 Business Essentials
($6 per user per month) plans
the G Suite 'Business' ($10 per user per month) and Office 365 Enterprise E3
($20 per user per month) plans.
In essence there is a $1 per user per month saving to be made at the lower end
of the pricing bands by plumping for the G Suite 'Basic plan over Microsofts
Business Essentials; but at the more enterprise level, the Office 365
Enterprise E1 plan comes in at $10 higher per month than the G Suite
'Business' plan (and you'll have to pay upfront for the year for the Microsoft
product too).

This doesnt really tell the full story however, because there are so many
variables and potential tradeoffs at play here. Although the above plans are
broadly comparable, there are still big differences in important areas such as
email storage, file storage and archiving to consider; so coming up with an
answer to the which is cheaper, Google Apps vs Office 365 question is probably
best answered by taking a more in-depth look at the features of each product
and seeing how well they fulfil your business needs.

OFFICE 365 VS G SUITE: THE FEATURES

FILE STORAGE
Google Drive lets you access your files anywhere and on any device.
Google Drive lets you access your files anywhere and on any device.

If were talking entry-level plans, then Office 365 is a clear winner here: you get
1TB of storage with the Business Essentials plan compared to Googles rather
paltry 30GB on its 'Basic' plan (to add insult to injury, Google also counts emails
as taking up space in this 30GB limit).

However, if you move up a notch to the G Suite 'Business' plan, you'll find that
the Google plans beat all the Microsoft plans hands down in the file storage
department. With this plan you get unlimited storage, which is extremely useful
to any business that has a need to store large multimedia files in the cloud.
Although Microsoft Office 365s 1TB limit (which applies on all its plans) sounds
very generous, youd be surprised how quickly you can burn through 1TB of
storage if working with video or audio. That said, if you're just talking about
working with standard documents and spreadsheets, a 1 TB limit per user should
be perfectly adequate for most small to medium sized businesses. But if having
acres of cloud storage is your primary concern, then its probably a win here for
G Suite, so long as you are prepared to live with the more expensive $10 per
user per month plan.

One important thing to note - and this seems to be a fairly recent development -
is that the G Suite 'Business' plan only provides you with unlimited file storage if
you buy more than 5 user accounts. Otherwise you're restricted to 1TB per user.
This is a bit of a shame really, as it renders Google's USP rather less unique for
any companies with less than 5 employees.

Both Office 365 and G Suite give you the option to buy more storage on a per
user basis. As far as I can make out from the information provided by Microsoft -
its website isnt madly clear on this - every 1 GB extra on Office 365 costs $0.20
per user.

With G Suite, you'll generally only need to worry about storage limits if youre
using the basic plan or are on a 'Business' plan and, as discussed above, have
less then 5 users in your organisation.

If you're on a 'Basic' plan, there are several tiers of additional data storage
purchase options which start at 4GB ($4 extra per user per month) and go up to
16TB per user ($1430 per user per month!). Depending on how much storage
you need for particular users, you may find it works out cheaper to simply
upgrade all your G Suites users to the 'Business' plan than buying a few users
additional storage. Similarly, if you're on a G Suite 'Business' plan with less than
5 users and are hitting your storage limit, you might find it cheaper to buy a
couple of new accounts than buying additional storage.

EMAIL
The entry level $6 per month Office 365 plan is considerably more generous than
G Suite's entry level offering when it comes to email storage - a dedicated 50GB
inbox is available on top of the 1TB file storage provided. By comparison, the $5
per user per month G Suite Basic plan caps total storage at 30GB, emails and
files included.
Gmail is great - but Outlook (pictured above) gives you a lot more options when
it comes to grouping and sorting mail.
Gmail is great - but Outlook (pictured above) gives you a lot more options when
it comes to grouping and sorting mail.

However, if youre on the $10 G Suite 'Business' plan (and have 5+ users in your
team) there isnt a cap on your inbox size; by contrast, to get unlimited email
storage with Office 365, you need to be on the $20 per user per month
Enterprise E3 plan, a cost which is double that of the G Suite equivalent plan.
In terms of the email apps that are available to you, Gmail is robust, fast and
very easy to find messages with, thanks to its powerful search functionality
(youd expect that side of things to be good, given that its Google were talking
about here). Also, given its popularity there are a huge range of third-party apps
available for it which add all manner of useful functionality to proceedings.

However - and incredibly frustratingly - Gmail doesnt allow you to sort or group
mail, something most users will routinely require from an email client. As such
you may find yourself wanting to use Gmail in conjunction with another email
program - for example the excellent (and free) Thunderbird, or, whisper it,
Outlook.

And speaking of which, getting your hands on Outlook is a key attraction of

Office 365. On most Office 365 plans you get access to two versions of Outlook:
an online version, which is okay, but - mail sorting functionality aside - Gmail
probably betters in most respects; and an offline version, which is feature rich
and provides a lot of flexibility when it comes to how you sort, group, label and
generally manage your email.

APPLICATIONS
Here is where things get pretty interesting, and where a LOT of potential users of
Office 365 and G Suite will be tempted to go for Office 365. With most of the
Office 365 plans you get all the desktop versions of their products as well as the
cloud-based ones. In essence, you can install the full versions of Word, Excel,
Powerpoint, Outlook etc. on your desktop machine and work offline on these
applications. Despite this being the age of cloud computing, a multitude of
businesses still send each other files created offline using these applications, so
there is a strong argument for having desktop versions of all the above available,
so that your team can work easily with these file formats.

Another argument in favour of having the MS applications installed in your

organisation boils down to functionality. Its fair to say that the Google apps are
definitely more basic in terms of what they can do than their Microsoft desktop
app equivalents. If youre looking to do some advanced number crunching, Excel
will beat Google Sheets; if you want to add some Smart Art in a document,
youll need to be working in Microsoft Word rather than Google Docs; and if you
need slick slide animations in a presentation, Powerpoint will do a much better
job than Google Slides.

However, that shouldnt deter you entirely from using G Suite, because it is
possible to open Microsoft Office documents using them, and even save files
created with G Suite to Microsoft Office format. The problem with working this
way is that you cant always preserve the exact formatting of Office files when
you edit and save them using a Google app. How much of a big deal this is for
you will depend on the nature of your business: if you are expected by clients to
routinely provide them with extensively-formatted MS Office files then youre not
always going to be able to do that with G Suite. But if you just need to
occasionally open an MS Office file, or send something basic over to a client in
MS Office format, you would be able to make do with Googles suite of products.

The other thing to remember about the Microsoft Office desktop applications is
that as nice as they are, and as familiar with them as your team may be, they
have to be installed locally. This means that that somebody in your organisation
will need to take care of this aspect of things - and this person (or persons)
should really know what theyre doing. In essence, using the Microsoft desktop
apps may bring with it some hidden IT costs (at the very least, theres a time
implication - your team will need to devote some hours to installing and
periodically updating the applications).

Theres also something else you might want to consider about giving your team
access to the desktop apps: habit or human nature. Most people like to work with
tools they're familiar with, and, given the long history of Microsoft Office
products, your team is likely to plump for the locally installed versions of the
Office 365 products over the cloud-based, collaborative tools it also provides.
This will possibly encourage 'local' or offline working at the expense of the more
collaborative cloud approach (and working offline can throw up some security
headaches too).

Conversely, if you create a working environment where your organisation only

uses browser-based applications (such as those offered by G Suite) that save
documents to the cloud, then your data is arguably more secure (so long as you
have backup procedures in place) and your team are more likely to make fuller
use of collaboration features.

Finally on the subject of apps, dont forget that there is nothing to stop you from
using both G Suite and MS Office apps in conjunction with each other. If you are
tempted by the unlimited cloud storage provided by G Suite, but want to save
Word documents in it, you could buy the offline versions of the Microsoft
applications that you use regularly, and save files created in them to your Google
Drive via Google Desktop Sync (more on that anon).

COLLABORATION
A huge advantage of working in the cloud is the collaboration possibilities it
opens up. Instead of faffing about with markup and tracking changes, people
who want to work on the same file can simply open up a document in a browser
and see, in real time, the edits that everybody looking at the file is making.
Both G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 make this sort of online collaboration
straightforward using their online apps. Additionally, you can now use Microsofts
desktop apps to work on documents in real time with other team members - but
some users, including the Wall Street Journals Personal Tech columnist Geoffrey
A. Fowler, have found that to be a bit of a clunky experience, as the video below
demonstrates:

In the interest of balance however, it's worth sharing another video with you too,
which takes a look at the collaboration features of the online, browser-based
versions of the Office 365 apps:

I would on balance say that collaboration functionality in G Suite is a bit easier to

get your head around than Office 365s, possibly because the product is 1) less
feature packed and 2) was conceived with collaboration as a key feature (Office
365, by contrast, has evolved from being a suite of desktop applications into a
solution that features collaborative tools). All in all though, both product suites
definitely allow you to collaborate with co-workers effectively.

See below for a video highlighting some collaboration options in Google Docs.

VIDEO CALLS
Both G Suite and Office 365 provide video conferencing functionality: Hangouts
and Skype respectively. In my experience Ive found Hangouts to work a bit
better than Skype - it seems to drop calls less frequently and crash less. But I
have also found that more people are on Skype and are more comfortable with
using it. This means, predictably, that Ive ended up using both tools for making
calls.

However, Office 365 is much more generous when it comes to participant limits
on video calls. The maximum number of people that can participate in a video
call using a Google Hangout is 25; on Skype its 250. And if youre looking for
serious voice calling functionality in general - both in terms of conference calling
or general telephony services, Office 365 offers far more options...but note that
you will have to be on one of the most expensive plans to avail of these features.

THAT SYNCING FEELING

Both Office 365 and G Suite provide desktop apps for syncing local data with the
cloud and vice versa - OneDrive and Google Drive Sync respectively. These apps
allow you to save a file in the cloud which then appears on your local drive, or
vice versa. This is handy for when you want to work on documents offline, or
want to back up or upload local files to your cloud storage (the downside of this
is that it makes your data less secure - if your laptop gets stolen for example, so
does your data).

I prefer Office 365s desktop sync option to G Suite's, because it makes it easy to
share a file with others directly from the desktop - you just right click on the file
and you see an option to share it with others. If you want to share a file on
Google Drive you have to go into the web app to do so, which can interrupt
workflow.

MOBILE APPS
As you'd expect, there are mobile apps (iOS and Android) available for both G
Suite and Office 365, which allow you to access and edit your files on the go. My
experience with both has been fairly positive; it's certainly possible to access the
information quickly on both sets of apps easily, but I'm not sure how inclined I'd
be to do a lot of editing of spreadsheets, for example, on a mobile device
(particularly a phone: far too fiddly).

Most users will end up using the mail applications the most - and these are the
apps I've had the most experience with. I don't particularly like the Gmail mobile
app, as it doesn't let you turn off the horrendous conversation view. On the flip
side it is brilliant when it comes to searching for old messages (as you'd expect
from a company specialising in search engine functionality).

The mobile version of Outlook is a bit disappointing too - no sorting or grouping

of mail is possible. To be honest, whether I was using G Suite or Office, I'd
probably be inclined to ignore both their offerings when it comes to mobile email
and use my favourite mobile email client, Inkymail, instead.

The good thing about both sets of mobile apps is that they make editing your
work on-the-go in areas where you don't have Internet access very
straightforward - so long as you save the files you want to work onto your mobile
device before you go offline (see the section below on working offline for more
details).

ADVANCED FEATURES IN OFFICE 365 AND G SUITE

There are various features that are available on certain G Suite and Office 365
plans which will be of relevance to users with advanced requirements.

Features common to both products' more enterprise-grade plans are:

Intranet building functionality
E-discovery tools
Advanced reporting
Email archiving
Legal holds on inboxes
Microsoft offer some additional advanced functionality on their most expensive
plans, including

Advanced virus protection

Rights management
Cloud based phone call hosting services
Its probably fair to say that you can avail of some advanced functionality
considerably cheaper with G Suite - for example, you get intranet building
functionality with the $5 per month G Suite option; and e-Discovery tools,
advanced reporting, email archiving and legal holds on inboxes all come as
standard on the $10 per month 'Business plan'. But if you are hoping to avail of
most of the functionality listed above using Office 365, youll have to bear in
mind that it is only available on the most expensive plans - the $20 per month E3
plan or the $35 per month E5 plan.

SUPPORT
24/7 phone support in English is offered for users of both G Suite and Office 365;
hours for support in other languages vary depending on country. Email support is
also offered for both products; and there are various support forums available for
both products too.

INTERFACE AND EASE OF USE

So which is easier to use, G Suite or Microsoft Office 365? Which product comes
with the steeper learning curve? As with much else in this comparison, the fairest
answer (unfortunately!) is probably it depends.

Because of the ubiquity of Microsoft Office apps, there is a strong case to be

made that people using Office 365 are likely to already be familiar with how
Microsoft software works, and be in a better position to hit the ground running
with them.
Google Docs has a very clean user interface and the collaboration tools are easy
to use (click image to enlarge).
Google Docs has a very clean user interface and the collaboration tools are easy
to use (click image to enlarge).
You could also argue however that the simpler productivity tools bundled with G
Suite generate a less steep learning curve for users who are new to online
collaboration.

In terms of user interfaces, the Google apps feel less cluttered than those
bundled with Microsoft Office, simply because they are not as feature packed. I
personally much prefer working in Google Docs to the desktop version of Word,
because theres no load time and only a few menu options to be distracted by.
My Google document is always saved to the cloud and I can pick up where I left
off on it at any point, on any device.

The online version of MS Word lets you work in a similar fashion, it has to be said
- but it just feels a bit more fussy and in my experience takes a bit longer to
load. But it is unquestionably better - as you might expect - for editing MS Office
documents and saving them without formatting issues.

Ultimately I think both products are fairly straightforward to use - if editing MS

Office files is going to be a big part of your job, then Office 365 will feel a lot
more familiar and present less of a learning curve; if collaboration is more the
concern, then G Suite is arguably the slightly better bet.

WORKING OFFLINE WITH G SUITE AND OFFICE 365

Given that G Suite is essentially designed to run in a browser, a key question
many potential Google Apps users typically have is "will I be able to work
offline?" The answer is: yes. On a desktop computer, you'll need to do two
things: 1) ensure that you've installed Google's Chrome browser and 2) switch on
file syncing. This will allow you to access and edit Google documents, sheets and
slides offline; any changes you make to them will be synced to the cloud when
you reconnect to the Internet.

With regard to Gmail, there is an offline app available for it, which also requires
Chrome to run - and again you'll need to ensure you download all your mail
before going offline. The Gmail offline app is very similar to the mobile version of
Gmail - and it's similarly annoying, because you can't switch the conversation
view off.

You can also work offline using Google's mobile apps - however, you have to let G
Suite know that you want a particular file to be available offline first (by checking
an option that downloads it to your mobile device).
With Office 365, the best way to work offline on a desktop computer is using the
standard desktop applications in conjunction with the desktop version of
OneDrive. As with G Suite, ensure you've synced everything to your desktop
before going offline - you can then work on any file in Word, Excel etc. and when
you reconnect to the Internet any changes you have made will be synced.

Office 365's mobile apps also let you work offline, but as with Google's mobile
apps, you'll need to download individual files to your mobile device first to
access them on the go.

EXTENDING THE FUNCTIONALITY OF G SUITE AND OFFICE 365

If you are not happy with the functionality provided by the G Suite apps and
Office 365, there are two ways you can extend the functionality of both suites of
products.

The first, and simplest, is by installing an 'add on' to the products. Both Microsoft
and Google have online stores that provide a wide range of apps to beef up their
productivity tools - the 'Office Store' and 'Apps Marketplace' respectively. There
are more apps available for Microsoft Office than G Suite: 1500+ Microsoft apps
to Google's 750+ apps. Both free and paid-for apps are available for both
systems.

The other way to beef up the functionality of both products is to code something
yourself. If you have the know-how, you can use the Microsoft or Google APIs
(application program interfaces) to add a bespoke piece of functionality to your
chosen set of productivity tools. You can read more about the Google Apps API on
the Google Developers site; the relevant information about the Microsoft Office
API can be found here.
 If you work in an G Suite can be used to
organisation that produce and edit MS
absolutely has to work Office documents, this
with MS Office files functionality is limited and
regularly - and particularly you can expect hiccups
if you need to use the when you try to edit and
advanced functionality save a complex Office
that MS Office applications document or spreadsheet
provide - then the natural with a Google app. That
choice is definitely going said, G Suite technically
to be Office 365 (just make allows you to edit both
sure that you select a plan documents produced with
that includes the desktop Google Apps *and* MS
applications) Office apps - this is not
true of Office 365.

If you're on a budget If your organisation sends

however, and email and receives a large
storage is a big issue for amount of mail, then
you, you'll find that the might find yourself drawn
Office 365 entry-level towards a 'Business' G
plans are considerably Suite plan, as these come
more generous when it with unlimited email
comes to email storage storage
all the MS Office 365 5 or more G Suite
plans, even the most accounts, for $10 per user
expensive ones, cap the per month, you get
standard storage figure at unlimited file storage and
1TB unlimited email storage
Environment If organisation uses a wide MS Windows-based,
mix of devices and there's a lot to be said for
operating systems, then Microsoft Office 365 - a
you could potentially make plan which involves the
life easier for your users desktop apps will slot very
by plumping for G Suite, neatly into such an
which is designed to run environment
online. With G Suite, it
simply wont matter
whether your team
members use Mac OS,
Windows, Linux, Chrome
OS...everything will look,
feel and function the same
Resource the resource and IT cost the resource and IT cost
Requirement implication for deploying, implication for deploying,
maintaining and maintaining and
supporting Office 365 is supporting G Suite is less
marginally high
scalability The more affordable Office No such limit applies to G
365 plans (the 'Business' Suite plans.
ones) currently cap the
numbers of users at 300
Most Office 365 plans
come with desktop
versions of the Microsoft
Office applications, making
the product a much better
fit for any organisation
with clients that expect it
be able to send, receive
and edit MS Office files
without difficulty. This is in
my view by far the
strongest argument for
choosing Office 365.
The file storage and email
storage quotas on the
Office 365 entry level plan
are much more generous
than those provided by the
G Suite entry level plan.
Outlook provides you with
an easy means to sort and
group mail - Gmail doesnt
(unless you use a client
like Outlook or
Thunderbird to access it).
You can have far more
participants on a Skype
call than a Hangout.
More advanced phone call
management options are
available with Office 365.
Its easier to share files on
desktop computers using
the sync app for
Microsofts OneDrive than
the Google Drive
equivalent.
More advanced
functionality regarding
File storage: at $10 per
user per month, the
Google Unlimited Plan is
better value data-wise
than most of the Microsoft
plans, giving you an
unlimited amount of cloud
storage to play with (as
long as you are buying 5+
G Suite accounts).
Its very scalable - there
are no limits on the
number of users
regardless of what plan
youre on (the cheaper
Office Business plans cap
the number of your users
at 300).
G Suite was built as
collaboration-focused
solution, and as such its
collaboration features are
arguably stronger.
eDiscovery, site building
tools, email archiving and
legal holds on inboxes
(amongst other advanced
features) are available for
a much lower cost with G
Suite.
The Google Apps
interfaces are clean and,
so long as a good internet
connection is being used,
the apps load fast
(certainly faster than
Microsoft Office desktop
equivalents).
Its a good solution for
businesses where multiple
devices and operating
systems are used.
There are a large number
of third party web
virus protection and rights
management is available
with MS Office 365 (for a
price, though).
Office 365 may provide a
natural fit for businesses
that are exclusively
Windows-based.
More apps are available to
extend the functionality of
Office 365.
applications which
integrate neatly with the
G Suite apps and enhance
their functionality.
The fact that everything is
cloud-based may
encourage users to use
the cloud more, with all
the collaboration-related
benefits this brings.
File storage: at $10 per
user per month, the
Google Unlimited Plan is
better value data-wise
than most of the Microsoft
plans, giving you an
unlimited amount of cloud
storage to play with (as
long as you are buying 5+
G Suite accounts).