What’s more fun than putting two titans in the ring together? Using the winner for your file sharing and collaboration, of course. Varay compared these two technology giants so you can decide who is the winner for your business.
Both the Google Suite of tools and Office 365 boost business productivity through cloud storage and data access, but there are some differences you should know about.
Here’s the G-Suite and Office 365 break down in terms of cost and ease of use.
G-Suite vs. Office 365: Cost
G-Suite Business and Office 365 both offer monthly payments and annual plans. It’s worth checking into their annual plans if you don’t have high turnover, as you may be able to get a better deal that way.
There’s some variation at the different levels though. For example, If you choose the lowest level of service with Office 365, you’ll have far more email storage, but G-Suite’s Business plan provides more data storage (unlimited, in fact) for your dollar if you have more than five users.
All of that said, however, there’s not a real difference in cost between the two across their comparable plans.
Comparing G-Suite and Office 365 in terms of ease of use
The primary tools in each suite mirror each other (Google Sheets = Excel, etc.), and their functionality is similar at the surface level.
But as you delve deeper into slide presentations or complex spreadsheets, it’s obvious Microsoft has the more feature-rich, developed versions. After all, they’ve been at the game for a long time and responded to years of user feedback.
Speaking of users, we can’t discuss ease of use without mentioning that decades of devoted Microsoft users mean you’ll work with clients and peers who only use Office 365’s tools. While it’s certainly possible to use G-Suite tools to open Microsoft files, you’ll usually lose some of the formatting when you do it this way.
Both G-Suite and Office 365 offer video conferencing and real-time cloud collaboration. Here’s where ease of use gets a little interesting. In contrast to their more basic core tools, Google’s conferencing app (Hangouts) and cloud collaboration abilities function a bit more efficiently and reliably than Microsoft’s.
But, and this is a big but, more people are familiar with and comfortable using Microsoft’s conferencing (Skype) and adapt to using their collaboration features on tools like Word more easily. So even though G-suite may have refined these tools better, Office 365 wins because of user familiarity.
Value added: Who ultimately delivers the most benefit to users?
Ultimately, though both suites are strong contenders, we often end up recommending Office 365 because the longevity of their brand is well-earned. They create products that have wider adoption and use, so though G-Suite has very comparable (and sometimes superior) counterpoints, you’re more likely to work seamlessly with your team and your customers if you use Office 365.
Get started with Office 365
Contact us today to schedule a free consultation and see whether Office 365 is right for your team. We can make the process of migrating your data and email service hassle-free.
