Cloud Computing

cloud

Cloud computing is a concept that continues to grow daily. A few years ago, Microsoft jumped on this bandwagon. Thus, Office 365 is the new thing as far as cloud computing is concerned. You may have also heard about Google Apps. This brings us to the battle: Google Apps vs. Office 365.

Which is the best platform should businesses use?

Office 365icon

This is a productivity suite from Microsoft that provides tools for large, medium, and small businesses to access documents, emails, calendars, and contacts through a browser from any particular computer. You should note that this is not a new version of Microsoft Office. However, within this suite, you this suite, there is Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Lync Online, and Microsoft Exchange. All these are running via the cloud.

Office 365 is a browser-based solution, which incorporates access to document management, webmail, and other solutions for small, medium, and large businesses. This suite can be accessed by different devices such as Mac, Windows Phone, PC, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and many more.

Also, if you have Microsoft applications such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, this suite works with them. The primary objective here is to use the administration console that allows IT administrators to control user accounts and access rights.

When it comes to security issues of this platform is that it uses latest defences against spam and viruses. For instance, disaster recovery is handled by automatic failovers, data centers. Thus, you are provided with 99.9% uptime.

Google Apps

This is a file storage and collection of internet-based programs that run in the web browser without demanding users to purchase or install the software. Therefore, users can log into the service and access tools, files, and even manipulate them. Some of these include productivity tools such as Google Docs, spreadsheets, text files, presentations. There are also communication tools such as Google Calender and Google Hangout.

All applications in Google Apps work via a web browser. Users are required to have Google account. When logged into the account, you can access these tools. For instance, you can use Google Docs jmkb53te6dy52r5t7su82vr3e5dtwithout the need of high-level of functions. Spreadsheets do support simple functions and formulas. Every file has got a creator that choose who to access the files.

Google owns several internet companies such as Youtube. Therefore, there is a possibility of integrating Google Apps across its different platforms. Google should balance complexity with performance. In the future, offline functionality is likely to be released. This will allow users to access software and files without being connected to the internet.