An Old Dog vs. New Tricks
The web is incredible. Of course it has always been incredible in its own time, but it got better with introduction of Google Apps.
Google Apps is a collection of web apps designed for business productivity. Email, Spreadsheets, Documents, Instant Messaging, Calendar and all of this in your own custom domain.
Previously Microsoft had the market for Email, Calendar and Office Applications like Spreadsheets and Rich-Text Documents. These were available in software that you install on your PC computer. Google took the same concept and put it on the web making it accessible from anywhere over the internet, across platforms on Windows, Macintosh, Linux and even on a cellular phone. Microsoft has recently taken the challenge and created their own software as a service productivity suite.
I heard that on WIBC Indianapolis this morning.
Microsoft Office 365 is a hosted solution for documents and spreadsheets, email and calendar. It is similar to Google Apps, but I’m sure it is bloated with too many graphics, and back-end software. Office 365 is available for $6 per user per month.
$6 x $12 = $72
Google is $50 per user per year. So by going with Google you get a cleaner look and you save $22 per user per year over Office 365.
Check out this comparison of the two services.
Google knows that Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office are still popular. So they made it easy for those who use these softwares to also use Google Apps.
Google Cloud Connect is a plugin for integration with Microsoft Office. It allows MS Office users to open Google-hosted documents inside their locally installed Office Suite.
It is notable that The State of Wyoming has converted all of their employees to Google Apps for Government. Nice going, Wyoming!
[...] a previous post I mentioned that Google Apps made the world better. Here is the [...]