Office 365 or Google Apps?!

[+Byt Subscriber¹]

Hey All,

Now that Google has took away the free version of its Google Apps for under a certain amount of users, i am thinking of starting to use Office 365 for clients.

I just wondered if anyone has tried both and can give me some feedback on how reliable and easy to use it has been (Office 365 that is)

Google Apps was always my number 1 solutions for small clients with just a few emails accounts, however exchange in the cloud like Office 365 has proper integration into Outlook without the need for third party software to share things like Calendars i believe?

So yea i am just looking for some feedback really :)

Thank You

[RandyC]

I've been using Office 365 for my company for the past two years almost (since the public beta). All in all I think it's a good product (Exchange and Lync get used alot) and worth the ?3.90 per user per month and I haven't experienced any major outages during that time.

I don't use the web versions of Office much when in the office but on the move they have been useful as clients have varying versions of Office some of which haven't been patched with the XML file conversion patch.

[]SK[]

Exchange all the way.

I, like you, would easily recommend Google Apps for small businesses. Now that there are fee's involved though I can only recommend Office 365. Sorry but Outlook when hanging off the back of Exchange is just awesome.

I still use GA for my personal email. It's a great package but if I was forced to pay I would migrate to Office 365. Collaboration is the only thing better in GA IMO.

[Jub]

Intermedia.net (or .co.uk if in the UK) offer great Exchange 2013 services. I'd take a look at them too!

Also, AtMail Cloud offer their own solution, and it's working really, really well. It's cheaper than many other alternatives.

[+Byt Subscriber¹]

Hmm i will take a look at intermedia 100%,

I also use Google for my own email, its work "ok" with Outlook 2010 in IMAP, nowhere near as good as exchange!

Office 365 looks like the way to go, the first client ill be setting up with it is a hotel so i just wanted to make sure it is reliable thats all, i have a few domains spare that i can setup with a 365 Trial to test everything :)

Any tricks or time saving tips you could give me would be great! I know thats cheeky :p

[Japlabot]

I use Google Apps for Business & I have had a look at Office 365. Between the two I find that the Google Apps works better on more devices and mail clients, and Gmail is always getting innovative new features (if you opt in to Rapid Release). Also note that EAS is going to continue to be supported for Business Customers.

[game_over]

Intermedia.net (or .co.uk if in the UK) offer great Exchange 2013 services. I'd take a look at them too!

Also, AtMail Cloud offer their own solution, and it's working really, really well. It's cheaper than many other alternatives.

You got me excited there, this looked like a nice cheap way to manage my personal email and clients but at a minimum of 5 users it's a more expensive when starting out.

I'd need to round up some clients first to reduce the cost for myself.

I only need 1 email for the time being so $10 for 5 users and only using one seems pointless.

But will certainly be keeping an eye on this.

[]SK[]

I use Google Apps for Business & I have had a look at Office 365. Between the two I find that the Google Apps works better on more devices and mail clients, and Gmail is always getting innovative new features (if you opt in to Rapid Release). Also note that EAS is going to continue to be supported for Business Customers.

Not sure how you come to that conclusion as majority of mobile devices connecting to either service will be using EAS. The EAS protocol Google uses is older and as such doesn't support as many features.

[BajiRav]

SK[' timestamp=1358161417' post='595452894]

Not sure how you come to that conclusion as majority of mobile devices connecting to either service will be using EAS. The EAS protocol Google uses is older and as such doesn't support as many features.

I've seen that guy troll on Microsoft at times....

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Having only used Google Apps I can't really compare the two products, but I assisted in migrating all of our users from Outlook to Google Apps a couple of years ago without any problem. I believe the reason for doing that was that they wanted the collaboration option for their documents (more than one person working on the same document at the same time). Of course, if O365 comes with that then my point is moot.

[+Byt Subscriber¹]

Well i just spoke with a Office 365 Sales Rep and he told me that these Cloud email solutions from Office 365 are not compatible with "Mail" on a MAC. Which i find hard to believe?

I then asked him if there was a way to access an Office 365 mailbox via POP or IMAP instead of Exchange, he went silent and told me to ask the community?

Not a great start if their support is like him :(

[]SK[]

Google has the answers...

http://blogs.technet.com/b/lystavlen/archive/2012/03/23/office-365-will-now-support-pop-and-imap-connections-to-outlook-2003.aspx

I would imagine the Mac users will get a better experience using OWA.

[sc302 Veteran]

Well i just spoke with a Office 365 Sales Rep and he told me that these Cloud email solutions from Office 365 are not compatible with "Mail" on a MAC. Which i find hard to believe?

I then asked him if there was a way to access an Office 365 mailbox via POP or IMAP instead of Exchange, he went silent and told me to ask the community?

Not a great start if their support is like him :(

Sales Reps are idiots.

Yes you can access the office 365 Mailbox by pop or by Imap as well as outlook. For most phones and tablets, they have Activesync integration and that makes life real easy. I would strongly recommend using outlook for proper integration though.

[game_over]

What a complete ****tard.. i'm using Office 365 right now on Mail.app using Exchange, it also works on POP3 and IMAP.

I'm looking to downsize though it costs almost ?5/month i think with tax in the UK.. i only bought it as i could only use Exchange at work but now we can use IMAP i'm free to use whatever service i like.. I quite fancied Outlook but thats no good since it only has POP3 and i want to sync it with my phone.. this AtmailCloud offering looks tempting i've contacted them to see if its possible to buy less than 5 licences.

[Japlabot]

SK[' timestamp=1358161417' post='595452894]

Not sure how you come to that conclusion as majority of mobile devices connecting to either service will be using EAS. The EAS protocol Google uses is older and as such doesn't support as many features.

I didn't say that most mobile devices will use EAS, I just said that EAS is still an option for Google Apps Business users. I have not heard that Google's EAS has less features than other EAS servers, but you could be right. Do you know which features are missing?

Better on more devices:

Android has native sync, which is obviously going to be better than EAS on Android.

There are a number of third party mail clients specifically designed for Gmail on the Mac such as Sparrow and Mailbox.

EAS can be used with Windows 8 mail.

Currently no Google Apps Sync client for Outlook 2013. Last time (Office 2010) this came out when 2010 hit general availability. Hopefully this comes soon.

I also heard this about EAS vs CardDAV from a Contacts perspective on iOS:

Purely talking contacts, EAS is limited to ~5 email addressses or phone numbers per contacts, and doesn't support custom labels (eg, home, work, iPhone, car phone, work iPhone, kids phone). CardDAV has no such limits.

CardDAV also supports social profiles (Facebook, Twitter etc links), as well as relationships, so you can actually ask Siri to call your mother, father, sister, spouse etc. Exchange ActiveSync does not support either.

http://whrl.pl/RdraTv

[Dashel]

Google Apps isn't even in the same league.

[Japlabot]

Google Apps isn't even in the same league.

You realise that Office 365 is the response to Google Apps, and they both do essentially the same thing at similar price, so really they are in the same league. Even though Office 365 is the newcomer, it has already had 3 long outages (1 due to date bug and 2 within 5 days) while Google Apps hasn't had any yet. Also I don't think that fanboy comments should come into it when it is a business decision. Have a look at both products for their own merits and then decide which one is best based on the business needs.

I have found that Google Apps is best for myself and the businesses that I manage (as an independent IT contracter) because it works on any device or mail client that is thrown at me where I am told "Here. Make it work with this.". I am not in a position to force everyone to use Windows Phone or iPhone in a business if they want to use Blackberry or Android (Not all Androids have EAS). I am not in a position to force everyone to use Windows instead of a Mac, or Webmail instead of their preferred email client. They just want it to work with what they have.

Putting in a new email system is much more expensive if you have to replace a bunch of PCs & Phones to do it.

Consider it free advice from the real world.

[PGHammer]

Well i just spoke with a Office 365 Sales Rep and he told me that these Cloud email solutions from Office 365 are not compatible with "Mail" on a MAC. Which i find hard to believe?

I then asked him if there was a way to access an Office 365 mailbox via POP or IMAP instead of Exchange, he went silent and told me to ask the community?

Not a great start if their support is like him :(

Maybe because you were talking to a Windows guy?

First off, Mail.app (OS X) supports IMAP4 (before Outlook:mac existed); however, Outlook:mac supports both IMAP4 and Exchange - just as Outlook 2010 for Windows (which predated it) and Outlook 365 have done since the beginning. (It's why my migration - on the OS X side - from Mail.app to Outlook:mac was, in fact, painless.)

Where the Mail app in Windows 8 falls short is POP3 support - not EAS (Outlook.com and Hotmail) or even IMAP4 (GMail); I can say that because before Outlook 2013 went into Consumer Preview, I used the Windows 8 Mail app for Hotmail and split the GMail usage between it and Outlook 2010, which was the first Windows mail client to configure GMail hands-off. I have no smartphones, so I wouldn't know about those.)

[PGHammer]

You realise that Office 365 is the response to Google Apps, and they both do essentially the same thing at similar price, so really they are in the same league. Even though Office 365 is the newcomer, it has already had 3 long outages (1 due to date bug and 2 within 5 days) while Google Apps hasn't had any yet. Also I don't think that fanboy comments should come into it when it is a business decision. Have a look at both products for their own merits and then decide which one is best based on the business needs.

I have found that Google Apps is best for myself and the businesses that I manage (as an independent IT contracter) because it works on any device or mail client that is thrown at me where I am told "Here. Make it work with this.". I am not in a position to force everyone to use Windows Phone or iPhone in a business if they want to use Blackberry or Android (Not all Androids have EAS). I am not in a position to force everyone to use Windows instead of a Mac, or Webmail instead of their preferred email client. They just want it to work with what they have.

Putting in a new email system is much more expensive if you have to replace a bunch of PCs & Phones to do it.

Consider it free advice from the real world.

The issue is the phones and devices - not the PCs (or even Macs).

While there are SOME differences between Windows and Macs, it's generally in areas that have to do with how the parts fit together, not general functionality. Look at the differences between Entourage and Outlook:mac, for example

[BajiRav]

You realise that Office 365 is the response to Google Apps, and they both do essentially the same thing at similar price, so really they are in the same league. Even though Office 365 is the newcomer, it has already had 3 long outages (1 due to date bug and 2 within 5 days) while Google Apps hasn't had any yet. Also I don't think that fanboy comments should come into it when it is a business decision. Have a look at both products for their own merits and then decide which one is best based on the business needs.

I have found that Google Apps is best for myself and the businesses that I manage (as an independent IT contracter) because it works on any device or mail client that is thrown at me where I am told "Here. Make it work with this.". I am not in a position to force everyone to use Windows Phone or iPhone in a business if they want to use Blackberry or Android (Not all Androids have EAS). I am not in a position to force everyone to use Windows instead of a Mac, or Webmail instead of their preferred email client. They just want it to work with what they have.

Putting in a new email system is much more expensive if you have to replace a bunch of PCs & Phones to do it.

Consider it free advice from the real world.

What's Google Apps equivalent of full Office suite? As far as I know that is included in Office365

[Evelyn Harthbrooke]

Well, you basically want to use Office 365. It's very cheap. And, you might as well use it now anyway since Google took away the free version of Google Apps.

[Japlabot]

What's Google Apps equivalent of full Office suite? As far as I know that is included in Office365

Only in the E3 plan which is $20/month.

If you already have a computer, the chances are you already have Microsoft Office 2003 or above, so need to get another full copy of office unless you really need to upgrade for some other reason. Volume Licensing with Software Assurance is also attractive option for an upgrade.

If it is a new computer, you could get a full copy of Office Home and Business 2010 PKC from Amazon for $150 (with free upgrade to 2013), which does not expire if you stop using your email system.

Buying a PKC version of Office for $150 plus $50 of Google Apps costs $200 per year. Office 365 Plan E3 costs $240 per year (and you have expiring software).

Pricing:

50/year or 5/month- Google Apps for Business

6/month - 365 Plan P1 (Equivalent to Google Apps)

20/month - 365 Plan E3 (with copy of the full Office suite)

Really for a small business, 4.16 5.00 or 6.00 per month is inconsequential. It is not worth deciding on cost alone, look at what you are getting for that amount. 6.00 per month vs. 20 per month when you already have Office is a bit more of a difference, which I'm sure a business could afford, but still pointless in paying unnecessarily.

Well, you basically want to use Office 365. It's very cheap. And, you might as well use it now anyway since Google took away the free version of Google Apps.

But Google Apps for Business, the paid version, is still cheaper than 365, if you are playing on economics alone. So the free version being taken away does not come into it. Regardless, $1 extra per user per month is hardly anything if 365 is the better option. Lets play each product on it's own merits than on fanboyism here.

The only thing wrong with Google Apps for Business at the moment as their sync tool for Outlook 2013 hasn't been updated yet, have to stick with 2010 or use IMAP. Let's see if it's still an issue when 2013 is fully released to market.

[Dashel]

Google Apps was a response to Office and that is why its no comparison. It really boils down to three simple real world things:

• Office formats are the standard
  
• Exchange/EAS is the standard
  
• On and Off Premise support
  

MS's relatively recent addition of web based Office and cloud service was simply the coup de grace. You can pretend Open/Libre Office are MS Office competitors too, but that isn't reality at any cost.

Its funny you cite me yet didn't once give any merits to the Google product either. Office's merits are already well proven.

Replace PCs? What? Orchestrating your entire document/communication strategy based on BYOD devices is not professional in any universe.

[Japlabot]

Google Apps was a response to Office and that is why its no comparison. It really boils down to three simple real world things:

• Office formats are the standard
  
• Exchange/EAS is the standard
  
• On and Off Premise support
  

MS's relatively recent addition of web based Office and cloud service was simply the coup de grace. You can pretend Open/Libre Office are MS Office competitors too, but that isn't reality at any cost.

Its funny you cite me yet didn't once give any merits to the Google product either. Office's merits are already well proven.

Replace PCs? What? Orchestrating your entire document/communication strategy based on BYOD devices is not professional in any universe.

You realise that you do not have to lose Microsoft Office to use Google Apps. Google Docs is there if you want it but you do not have to use it. Google Docs is great for simple tasks but if you need full functionality, just use Microsoft Office. Store your Microsoft Office documents on Google Drive, without conversion to Google Docs if you want the Google solution to sharing Microsoft Office docs as Microsoft Office docs. Google Docs are fully exportable to Microsoft Office formats and can be downloaded locally at any time. There are tools to keep a local backup of everything too.

Google Apps has as much functionality has Exchange offers, just without the complexity of setup, management & licensing; it just doesn't have the "Exchange" name (because that name is a Microsoft trademark). EAS continues to live on for Business customers, which is what we are discussing.

We are talking Off Premise (hosted) solutions here, comparing it to On Premise is irrelevant as this doesn't even cover what Office 365 is. We are talking Office 365 vs. Google Apps, not onsite Exchange vs. Google Apps.

You seem to be taking this discussion personally rather than a legitimate business discussion. I don't have anything against Office 365, I just want to even out the discussion with my experience of almost two dozen Google Apps implementations so far, and the customer feedback has been phenomenal. Quite a few of these sites have been conversions from On-site Exchange servers. If I thought that Office 365 was a better solution for their particular business requirements, I would have no issues recommending it.

My reference to replacing PCs or Devices was not about BYOD, what I mean is that with Google Apps, you can use it with practically any Device or Computer already in the organisation without the user having to change mail clients (and require retraining). I don't think that I will find it an easy sell if I have to tell the CEO that he needs to replace his brand new Nexus 4 bought on the company plan, in order to upgrade the mail system so employees can get company email on their company phones.