E-guide: Best for Business – Google Apps or Office 365

Are you in the cloud?

Anybody associated with a small to medium size business (SMB) knows how to do the most with a little. As an entrepreneur, you are accustomed to the constraints of tight budgets and limited resources. You make the most of what you’ve got. That includes your IT infrastructure and related capital expenditure. Turning to the cloud and implementing virtualisation is one MO to give your company a competitive edge against multinational corporations and their trending, state-of-the-art technology.

Microsoft Office 365 is a comprehensive cloud-based productivity suite that is popular with SMBs. Research shows that using Office 365 helps a company to reduce costs, streamline business operations and promote collaboration among your employees.

How the cloud works

For ‘non-techy’ individuals, the cloud can be seen as an object of fear and the unknown. Thoughts of doubt such as ‘What happens when I can’t access my data?’ and ‘Why aren’t the files I need stored locally?’ spring to mind. These questions can easily be answered by considering a simple definition for the cloud: an online, remote file hosting and data sharing information technology paradigm. The cloud is always online, so you can access always access data. The cloud is remote, so you save on hard disk and server space. The cloud is not sinister. The cloud can be a saviour for your SMB.

Office 365 Cloud Technology

So what is the relationship between Office 365 and the cloud? Office 365 places familiar desktop applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook as web-based apps in the cloud. You may ask ‘How different is 365 from the conventional desktop package?’ Not much. Instead of using software on your PC to draft a Word document for example, you’ll access the same software remotely. You’ll also save and store all documents, spreadsheets, presentations, emails, websites and conferencing tools offsite rather than on your hard disk or onsite server. Data can be accessed and shared anywhere and at any time. The cloud offers a smart way to nurture collaborative editing and flexible working.

This e-guide: what to expect

This e-guide aims develop your understanding of Microsoft Office 365 fundamentals. You’ll be able to make an informed decision as to whether or not the suite is a viable solution to part of your overall IT needs. The guide will focus on eight benefits of moving Office to the cloud. Also, you’ll explore some common concerns that SMB owners and management have pertaining to cloud migration.

The story behind Office 365

Prior to the official release of Office 365 in 2011, many businesses of all sizes were migrating to the cloud-based Google Apps for Work, currently known as G Suite. SMBs and corporations alike deemed Microsoft as the trusty and dependable provider of email and communications software. In the meantime, Google was steadily establishing a reputation as a haughty upstart in the tech world.

Google Apps for Work was completely cloud-based. Businesses and organisations saw this as an opportunity to eliminate onsite servers; these are expensive to operate and maintain. Moreover, Google Apps supported the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend, a workplace culture shift in which an increasing number of employees were using personal devices for work purposes. BYOD had several advantages, including a dispersed workforce being able to communicate 24/7 from almost anywhere on the planet.

Besides facilitating file sharing and communication, Google Apps for Work also meant that businesses could bypass expensive licenses required for each PC using the Office desktop suite. Individuals quickly adopted the terms Google Docs and Google Drive, and sharing files or editing them simultaneous became common practice.

The thought of losing their share of the market to a young competitor didn’t go down well with Microsoft. In 2014, they introduced Office Online, a fully cloud- based Office suite containing all the features of the desktop applications – at no charge. Some say that Google Docs was a stripped down version of Office. By supplying Office Online to SMBs, non-profits and educational intuitions, Microsoft was providing a web-based platform to those unable to afford the Desktop Office 2013 suite.

Key components of Office 365

There are four essential components that form the basis of the Office 365 cloud-based provision: 

• Microsoft Web Apps

Here you have the classic MS Office suite with apps such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel available in a web-based format.

• Microsoft Exchange Online

Exchange Online is a hosted message application that included access to email, calendars, contacts and tasks for any endpoint device. Endpoint devices include desktops, laptops, tablets and Apple technologies. 

• Microsoft SharePoint Online

Microsoft SharePoint is a web- and cloud-based technology that enables your employees to share, manage and collaborate on documents and projects through websites. Access to SharePoint is remote, so collaboration can occur from almost anywhere. SharePoint Online also means that you can collaborate externally with clients and vendors. 

• Microsoft Teams Online

Teams Online provides a route to connect with friends, peers, colleagues and clients through instant messaging (IM), audio and video calls, and online presentations and conferencing.

Compare Office 365 with Google Apps

When you compare the features of Office 365 with Google Apps for Work, you’ll notice that different names apply to similar functionalities. For example, for webpage creation and design, Microsoft uses SharePoint and Google uses Google Sites. This close association is a result of Google replicating established Microsoft Office products in the form of cloud-based software. The table which follows provides a snapshot comparison of Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps for Work applications.

Despite Google’s imitation of Office 365, which some say could be unintended flattery, their Apps for Work offerings have experienced limitations in the workplace. Let’s take a look at three of these: 

• A majority of employees will opt for Outlook as opposed to Gmail, believing that the Microsoft information manager has stood the test of time as Hotmail.
• OneNote provides advanced capabilities compared to Google Keep for note taking.
• On the surface Google Docs may be as intuitive as Word. However, the application has been criticised for formatting and layout issues. With Google Docs, things aren’t WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) at times.

Why businesses are Choosing Office 365

While Microsoft and Google offer similar features in Office 365 and Apps for Work respectively, the fact remains that both SMBs and large corporations are settling for Microsoft’s package. For the balance of this e-guide, you’ll explore eight reasons why SMBs favour Office 365 over Apps for Work.

Privacy and security

Security and privacy are two factors that SMBs are most concerned about when considering cloud migration. There is an ongoing, unsubstantiated fear that data is less secure in the cloud and more vulnerable to breach. This fear is unfounded as only a handful of security breaches have been associated with data stored in the cloud. As an SMB owner or executive, you can be assured that the cloud offers levels of enhanced data security that you may otherwise be unable to afford.

There are several ways that Microsoft Office 365 maintains business data security and privacy: 

• Your sensitive business data is stored in innovatory data centres with high-level file encryption. Added to this, the latest antivirus, spam filters and malware protection keeps your information safe.
• Microsoft’s Privacy Policy states that data cannot and will not be scanned. Nor will it be made available for use by third parties. You do not get this reassurance from Google. Google’s Privacy Policy explicitly states that any data collected can be used for advertising. Don’t forget, Google Ads is one of the company’s main cash cows. Googlebot programs crawl webpages and data files, gathering keywords used to trigger advertisements from paying advertisers. With Office 365 you are protected from data crawling. Microsoft always adheres to its Privacy Policy at no additional cost.
• Microsoft also provides easily accessible and up-to-date documentation on privacy protection and security strategies.

Anywhere at anytime

With Office 365, you can access all its applications such as Word, Outlook or Excel from most devices with WiFi capability and web browser functionality. The same is not true for Google for Work.

Here are two reasons why using Office 365 promotes productivity for your business: 

• Besides the cloud-base Office suite, the majority of Office 365 packages include desktop installation of Microsoft software for up to five PCs or Macs per subscription. This means, for example, that somebody editing a document through a web browser can complete their work offline using the Word application installed on their laptop or MacBook.
• Whether you are working online or offline, you will have the same user experience with Office 365 with no differences in formatting, layout or functionality.

Familiarity of Product

Microsoft is not the new kid on the block and most users are familiar with its products. Anybody using Office 365 for the first time is unlikely to encounter any difficulty or confusion. In essence, if you’ve used Outlook and Office suite for desktop, then your transition to Office 365 in the cloud will be seamless. Microsoft also provides an identical experience whether you are using its online, mobile or desktop applications. 

Effective and integrated

Linked to the notion of familiarity, is the fact that most people are proficient at using Microsoft software compared to competing products such as Google Apps. Also, online and offline use is part of an integrated whole; the cloud means that your Office desktop experience is enhanced due to greater collaboration in editing and file sharing.

Office 365 also provides SMBs with effective, integrated solutions because: 

• you can observe real-time presence and calendar availability
• you can initiate a web conference using Office applications or through Outlook, SharePoint and Teams.

Google does not provide this level of integration and relies on third parties to support video conferencing. 

Uniform formatting 

Here’s a thing: you open a Word document in Google Docs not expecting any surprises. Think again. What meets your eye is a disarray of unformatted headers, footers, pagination and tables. With Office 365, you’ll be saved from that unpleasant and disruptive experience. Office 365 always preserves formatting whether you are editing using a desktop or cloud-based version of the software. Ultimately, this gives you peace of mind. The documents sent to clients or prospects will look as intended. There won’t be any unwelcome surprises. 

In and out of the cloud 

A further benefit of Office 365 is that it provides a hybrid environment meaning that you can go about business in or out of the cloud. Put simply, if some aspects of your business aren’t yet suited to the cloud, these can be conducted locally using Office for desktops. Google Apps for Work does not have this hybrid positioning. 

Moreover, with Office 365, you know who has access to your data and you can easily control permissions, editing and sharing rights. Google Apps lacks this benchmark, having limited administrative and management capacity. 

Service health and service level 

For your SMB to be a success, you need to be confident that your critical business operations are optimised. You also need a method of gauging your level of optimisation. Microsoft provides a Service Health Dashboard, enabling you to monitor the status of your online service. Furthermore, Microsoft offers a financially backed Service Level Agreement (SLA). The SLA comes into play the moment service availability is less than 99.9 percent. 

Google’s service level offering is less transparent and reassuring. Downtime is only acknowledged as ‘real’ when greater than 5 percent of users are affected. For businesses that rely on accurate performance metrics to assess productivity, this is clearly not a solution. 

Get what you pay for 

With Microsoft, you get what you pay for. For example, if you chose Office 365 Business Premium, you get email hosting with a 50 GB mailbox and a custom email domain address, plus desktop versions of Office 2016, including Access and Publisher for PC only. All these applications are provided with support at a fixed monthly predictable fee. 

Using Office 365, your SMB will also have the flexibility to add or remove services as needed, again within a confined and simple pricing framework. 

Office 365 for your SMB 

You should understand by now that Microsoft Office 365 provides a tried and tested roadmap to productivity and security for your business software needs. You may spend a little more than on Google Apps for Work, but it is a worthwhile investment. MS Office 365 offers superior software, greater flexibility and robust security compared to its Google counterpart. Office 365 also means that you can migrate to the cloud at your own pace; the suite accommodates a hybrid deployment of cloud and onsite services. 

If you still have doubts about full migration to Office 365, you can always draw on the expertise of a local Managed Service Provider (MSP). The MSP will successful deploy SharePoint, Exchange and Teams onsite and in the cloud. By partnering with an MSP in your transition to a new technology environment, you’ll achieve a greater ROI on your Microsoft investment.