We know you’ve been using Microsoft Outlook for a while now, and you are hesitant to switch to another program. But is Google Apps actually better for your company? Keep reading for a comparison of Google Apps and the Microsoft Office Suite.
Products
Microsoft Office for Businesses includes the standard offerings of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote, with Outlook for email and calendar needs. Microsoft Office Professional also includes Access and Publisher.
Google Apps includes a wide range of offerings, like Google Calendars, Drive, Docs, Sites, Vault, Cloud Connect, and of course Gmail. With Google Docs, you can create and share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with other employees in your company.
Cost
Cost is obviously a big concern for most companies. The Microsoft Office Suite for Businesses starts at $199.99 per user. If you have ten employees, that’s nearly $2,000. Jump up to Microsoft Office Professional and the price increases to $349.99 per user, which comes to nearly $3,500 for ten employees.
Google Apps is free to use for up to ten users in your business. If you have more employees than that, you can sign up for Google Apps for 50 dollars per user per year. If you want to pay on a monthly basis, your options are either five dollars or ten dollars a month per user, depending on what services you need. Google Apps is clearly the best price, especially if your business is small.
Benefits of Google Apps over Microsoft Office Suite
One main issue with using Outlook for email is that if your server crashes, you simply have no email. With Gmail, you generally don’t have to worry that Google’s servers are going to go down. Anything can happen, but the chances of that happening are very slim. Plus, if they were to stop working, your email would still be backed up to the cloud, and past emails would be recoverable. Sharing is another advantage – with Google Apps you can easily share, edit, and keep track of changes to documents among coworkers with one click! No need to email back and forth, and no independent server is needed to house your files.
Google Apps can also be customized with your company’s logo. Your company can easily purchase a new domain name and integrate it with your email extension. So as soon as your company signs up with Google Apps, your chosen domain and email extension are set up. With Office, you have to purchase your domain through another carrier, like GoDaddy, and integrate your email yourself. It can be done, but it’s a bit more of a process.
Depending on the size of your business, the services you want, and your budget, either Microsoft’s Office Suite or Google Apps could be a great fit for your business. If you would like information about setting up either Office or Google Apps for your business, call us at (501)683-7229, email us at info@iprovit.com, or fill out a contact form.
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