Office 365 and Google Suite: the comparison
Summary:
Now the advantages of Office 365 over Google Apps. This article will compare both the technologies and will help you in deciding what is better Office 365 or G Suite / Google Apps.
No one can deny the power of cloud–based services. This service has made taken the office productivity to next level. Business organizations now do not think whether they need cloud-based services for their company. Rather they worry about which cloud suite to choose for their enterprise. Multiple competitors in the market of cloud office site is the reason behind this situation. However, every organization should have complete knowledge before picking up the cloud-based suite for themselves.
Office 365 and Google Apps (now known as G Suite) are prominent names in the field of cloud computing. While picking up one between these two, people often fail to make right choice for their organization. Lack of detailed knowledge about these suites is the main reason for this wrong choice. In this write-up, we will discuss why Office 365 in better than Google Apps. We have chosen some popular criteria and see how MS Office 365 excels over G Suite.
Comparison between Office 365 and G Suite
| Criterion | Office 365 | Google Apps |
| Document Productivity Tool | Word, Excel, PowerPoint Familiar, easy to use | Docs, Sheets, Slides Initially difficult to use |
| Email Client | MS Outlook. Allows offline access only via all major browsers. | Gmail. Allows offline access only via Chrome. |
| Security Measures | Complete protection against Virus and Malware | Same policy for personal and business users. Does not support standard of some industries |
| Shared Information | DLP and Rights Management DLP covers both emails & files | DLP and Rights Management DLP covers only Gmail |
| Collaboration Tools | Teams, Skype for Business | Google Hangout |
| Storage | 1 TB for all users | 30 GB for basic plan users. Rest of the subscribers get unlimited cloud storage |
Here are some criteria that we have chosen to show you why Office 365 should be chosen over Google Apps/ G Suite.
Document Productivity
As these suites are created exclusively to meet the needs of business enterprises, document processing is an important part of these office suites. Here, we have taken three major types of document to compare these suites.
Word Processing
Microsoft word is undoubtedly the most popular document processing tool in the world that allows creating and processing text documents. Both business and personal documents can be created and edited by MS Word, using its templates and built-in editing tools. Word Online, which comes with Office 365, also offers real-time sharing and web-based editing. Google Docs may not be your favorite at the first try if you are accustomed to MS Word. Gradually, users end up liking this document processing tool once they start to explore its templates and other menu items.
Spreadsheets
Any business organization will definitely need spreadsheet application for data entry, calculation, budget, etc. MS Excel is much more efficient than Google Sheets. In fact, most people only utilized 1-5% of Excel’s complete potential. The only advantage Google Sheets have over Microsoft Excel is its collaboration feature.
Slides
Presentations have become an indispensable part of inter-organizational and intra-organizational communication. Users may not find any significant difference between Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Slide, the presentation tools of Office 365 and Google Suite. Actually, PowerPoint has some useful features than Google Slides like templates, customized slide affects, drawing with scratch, etc. On contrary, the only upper hand slides have over PowerPoint is simultaneous online editing.
As we all know, both Office 365 and G Suite comes with two popular email clients, Outlook and Gmail respectively. Office 365 users can access emails offline by Outlook and OWA. Desktop email client of Microsoft has more features than Gmail. This service is available in all major browsers like Firefox, Chrome, IE 10 and Safari. Offline Access to G Suite email in possible via Google Chrome only.
Security and Threat Protection
Organizations store all their valuable and confidential data in cloud through these suites. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of cloud suites to ensure complete security of the data. The data center of Microsoft is protected by state-of-the-art technology with top-notch protection against virus and malware. The fact that security related expenses of Microsoft cross $1 billion per year tells the importance of data security to Microsoft.
In this field, G Suite is no match for Office 365. But, this does not mean that data in G Suite is completely vulnerable. G Suite data centers also have world-class security. However, G Suite has a common privacy policy for business and personal users; which means their data protection may not meet the standard for some industries.
Information
Users of office suite exchanges numerous personal information through it. The service providers have to be careful so that none of the information entered here gets outside. Office 365 has its own Rights Management policy that it implies to secure emails. It also has Data Loss Protection (DLP) policy that covers emails as well as files and sites. On the contrary, G Suite DLP only covers Gmail. G Suite Rights Management facilitates disabling copy, print, and download of any G Drive file.
Collaboration Tools
In the present day business, collaboration gets the highest priority. Both Office 365 and G Suite offers collaborative tools. In Office 365, users get to use Teams (for instant chat) and Skype for Business (for video conference and group calls). For internal communication, G Suite offers Google Hangout that allows IM, video call, screen sharing, etc. However, Hangout is not capable of performing complex tasks that Teams can do. People who want to remain in constant collaboration and willing to work on group projects over online, Microsoft Teams is the better choice.
Storage
All Office 365 users get 1TB of cloud storage data while G Suite basic users get only 30 GB data. Though business, enterprise or Team users of G Suite get unlimited cloud storage, Office 365 offers more storage for basic plan users.
Conclusion
In this post, we have tried to combine all major criterion to have a contrasting view of Office 365 and G Suite. From this comparison, it is clear that Office 365 is better than Google Apps/ G Suite. After reading this post, users should not have any doubt about the supremacy of Office 365 over G Apps.