This article is aimed at comparing Google Docs vs. the traditional Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise software. It delves into all the new choices for creating, editing, sharing, and collaborating documents and spreadsheets these days. From using more traditional desktop applications like Microsoft Office to using online tools like Google Docs, this article explores the differences and highlights the benefits that Google Docs has over Microsoft Office. For example, if you use Microsoft Office to create and edit a document, what about when you need to share the file with others or allow collaborative editing? Do you use the same tools for both?
At this point you may still rely on regular Microsoft Word to write articles just like I’m using right now or for the purpose of sharing internally with others, but when sending it to multiple reviewers though, it can get a bit overwhelming to look at and sort through. So when sharing a document or spreadsheet outside the organization, you typically use Google Docs, which has functionalities you can’t get with the regular Microsoft office.
When comparing to use Google Doc or Microsoft Office, cost is another issue that obviously comes to mind. Why? Most of the online tools (Google doc inclusive) are totally free compared to purchasing licenses at exorbitant prices for Microsoft Office. Google Apps (doc inclusive) Standard for your domain is free. Google Apps for Business offers two pricing plans: a flexible $5/user per month where you can add or remove users at will and pay the difference, and a $50/user per year plan where you commit for a year to get a discounted rate.
Office on the other hand, requires the initial investment in Office on your user desktops and some Office Servers and services in your environment. But after that, you’ll still also have to part with $6/user per month for the small business plan. If you don’t have Office on your users’ desktops, you can pay another $12/user per month to get each one of them a copy of Microsoft Office Professional Plus. There’s no two ways about it: Microsoft Office 365 is and will always be more expensive for almost every kind of business, but Microsoft thinks they have more than enough features to justify the price.
When you use Google Docs, you live and do virtually everything you need in your web browser. You edit documents and spreadsheets through your browser, you get your email through Gmail, and you chat with colleagues using Google Talk – all in your browser.
Conversely, if you want to access those features, you’ll need Office installed on your desktop already (to make use of offline and cloud-based features as opposed to webapps only) and you’ll need the.NET framework installed. You’ll also need Lync installed on your system as well if your organization will leverage global presence for instant messaging and chat. Looking at this alone you would know that it is by far easier to work with Google Docs than Microsoft office.
In conclusion, there are an uncountable number of reasons why you should use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office and these reasons are self-evident as already shown in the few instances above.
