Author: Ed Bott / Source: ZDNet
Both Microsoft and Google would like to be your one-stop shop for business productivity software. Their respective subscription offerings, Office 365 and G Suite, tick all the top-level boxes on your company’s communications and productivity checklist.
Each suite includes the following features:- Business email and shared calendaring services attached to custom domains
- Online storage, with shared space for collaboration and a large allotment of personal storage space for each user account
- Productivity apps for creating and collaborating on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations
- Corporate communication tools, including messaging, online meetings, and video conferencing
- A management interface, with advanced features such as compliance and archiving for enterprise customers as well as security features including two-factor authentication
Both of these services are underpinned by a robust, highly reliable cloud infrastructure with data centers worldwide. (And if the G Suite brand doesn’t ring a bell, maybe you know the service by its former name, Google Apps. The name change was effective in 2016.)
The two companies dominate the market for enterprise productivity software, with a handful of much smaller competitors, including Zoho Workplace, far behind.
Also: Google raises G Suite prices: Basic to $6 a month per user, business to $12 a month
Despite the superficial parity in features, Office 365 and G Suite take distinctly different approaches in terms of cloud architecture and app design. For many, the choice comes down to which of those approaches fits best with your installed base of hardware.
Microsoft’s approach builds on its blockbuster Office franchise and the accompanying desktop apps, which are now available in Click-to-Run packages that update automatically. The back-end services, including Exchange Online, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint Online, offer an easy migration path for organizations ready to move their on-premises servers to the cloud. Employees can access those services using familiar Office desktop programs like Outlook, Word, and Excel, or they can use web-based alternatives.
By contrast, Google’s approach is cloud-native and browser-centric. The web-based tools are identical to those your employees are already familiar with, including Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, and Google Sheets. When used with Google’s Chrome browser, those apps support offline storage of email and documents
Both services include web-based management consoles that are designed for mid-sized business and larger. Those management tools can be intimidating in smaller businesses that don’t have a full-time IT department. For those scenarios, working with a reseller who’s been certified as an Office 365 or G Suite specialist is usually the best option.
Note that this guide covers Office 365 Business and Enterprise plans, as well as Microsoft 365 offerings that include those plans. This guide does not cover Microsoft’s Office 365 Home and Personal options, which lack support for custom domains and are managed by individuals rather than organizations.
Google, true to its keep-it-simple roots, has three and only three G Suite plans: Basic ($6 per user per month), Business ($12 per user per month), and Enterprise ($25 per user per month).
Office 365, by contrast, is available in a dizzying array of permutations: three plans aimed at small businesses (Business Essentials, Business, and Business Premium); four Enterprise plans for larger organizations transitioning away from per-machine licensing and on-premises servers; and as a part of Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise plans. There are separate Office 365 plans for educational institutions, US government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, as well as a stripped-down F1 plan for “firstline workers.”
Monthly per-user prices for Office 365 plans range from $4 to $35 per user per month. And if none of those plans suit your needs, you can mix and match individual services to create a custom plan.
It’s difficult to make head-to-head comparisons between the two services, although there are some similarities. Most Office 365 plans cost more than their G Suite counterparts because of the inclusion of Office desktop apps, a feature that adds about $8 a month to the per-user subscription fee. The $12-a-month G Suite Business plan, for example, matches most of the cloud- and browser-based features of Office 365 Enterprise E3, which costs $20 a month and includes the full collection of Office desktop apps.
All G Suite plans include:
- Gmail for Business
- Video and voice conferencing (Hangouts Meet)
- Secure messaging (Hangouts Chat)
- Shared calendars
- Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides
- At least 30GB of cloud file storage (Google Drive)
- Security and administrative controls
G Suite Business and Enterprise plans add cloud search, archiving, and eDiscovery options, and the ability to limit user access by geographic regions, among other features.
Table 1: G Suite plans at a glance
| Plan | Price per user/month | At a glance |
| G Suite Basic | $6 | Aimed at very small businesses, this plan includes Gmail with a custom domain along with the web-based Google productivity apps. Cloud storage is… |
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