For a few years now, cloud computing in general, and software-as-a-service in particular, has been a hot topic. Many folks, however, have yet to truly use any cloud-based solutions for business purposes. This is rapidly changing, as general business software is becoming more and more prevalent in the cloud. Not surprisingly, industry titans Microsoft and Google lead the way with cloud-based solution suites for office productivity software. Office 365 is Microsoft’s offering, while Google simply refers to their product as Apps.
Perhaps the most attractive product to both suites is email. Anyone who runs their own email server knows how much of a pain this can be. Microsoft, with the Exchange Online component of Office 365, provides a good service for anyone converting from a terrestrial version of Exchange. Given that Exchange has been the market leader for email servers in the past decade (at least), Exchange Online is proving to be a popular service.
Google basically repackages its Gmail service into Google Apps. As Gmail is used by millions around the world, this too is a popular option for businesses and government organizations.
The barriers to moving to cloud-based email and data are rapidly falling. Both Gmail and Exchange Online claim HIPAA compliance, for example. Folks are simply getting used to having their data in the cloud. And the fact of the matter is, despite how much we like to rag on them, both Microsoft and Google are more secure than just about every organization out there. Granted, they are higher-profile targets, but overall they can keep your mail more secure than you can.
The suites include more than email. Both have good videoconferencing capabilities. Much like teleconferencing has supplanted face-to-face meetings, even in Hawaii, videoconferencing will soon become the gathering place of choice.
Both suites provide cloud-based storage, and both have Web-based applications for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, among others. Unfortunately this is where there is still a lot of room for improvement. Both Google Apps and Microsoft’s Office Web Apps lack the robustness most folks are used to with contemporary desktop-based software packages, although Microsoft is the clear leader here.
As a trade-off, however, both suites offer real-time collaboration. Meaning, you and a few colleagues could all be editing the same file, at the same time, and see changes as they occur. In a curious bit of marketing, in certain versions of Office 365, Microsoft also provides licensed desktop (Mac or PC) versions of Office, including Word, Excel, Powerpoint and the other applications that make up the suite, for each user. Moreover, they provide up to five licenses per user. As such, under certain offerings, it is actually cheaper for an organization to subscribe to Office 365 than to buy traditional desktop licenses, even if they aren’t using any of the cloud-based offerings.
Clearly, Microsoft is doing its best to entice folks to make the move to Office 365.
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John Agsalud is an IT expert with more than 25 years of Information Technology experience in Hawaii and around the world. He can be reached at johnagsalud@yahoo.com
