Background

Office 365

The world’s leading productivity software, Microsoft Office, was announced by Microsoft founder Bill Gates in August of 1988. The original Office 1.0 came to market for Macintosh in 1989 and for Windows in November of 1990. These original versions came with Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, all of which had been offered as standalone products for several years prior. Office quickly dominated the market for productivity software and expanded the applications and packages offered. Microsoft Office is now used worldwide by over 1.2 billion people.

On June 28, 2011, Microsoft released Office 365, a monthly subscription model of Microsoft Office. Office 365 was originally available in 2 plans, one for small business and one for enterprise, but has since expanded to offer a variety of plans for businesses of all sizes. Office 365 currently has 155 million users and continues to grow.

Both Office 365 and standalone Office software include the original Office applications, but while Office 2019 is a one-time purchase to install the suite of apps on your computer, Office 365 installs receive regular updates since the license is paid for monthly. In contrast, new Office 2019 tools and features can only be obtained by purchasing the next release all over again. Additionally, because Office 365 is cloud-based, users can work together in real-time with expanded storage space accessible from any device.

Google Workspace

Google Workspace, previously called G Suite, is a set of web-based productivity tools from Google that helps organizations manage their business operations. Google Workspace was officially launched on August 28, 2006 as Google Apps for Your Domain and was available in free and paid subscription plans that included Gmail on the web, Google Talk (now Google Hangouts), Google Calendar, and Google Page Creator. As of 2018 there were a reported 4+ million organizations paying for the Google business suite, though it is unclear how many use the free version.

Through the years, Google Workspace has undergone name changes, new plan offerings, and many feature additions. Google stopped offering the free version to businesses in 2012 and moved current users to Google Apps for Business. 2012 also saw the introductions of Google Drive and Google Slides, counterparts to Microsoft’s OneDrive and PowerPoint apps. In 2016, Google Apps for Business rebranded again to become the G Suite, and is now known as Google Workspace. At the same time, App Maker was added to Business and Enterprise subscriptions. The App Maker provides a way for developers to build customized apps for their business to use in the application suite.

Office 365

Google Workspace

  • Licensing: Microsoft offers several business licensing plans to meet a range of business needs. Syvantis provisions the following licenses:

    Enterprise E3 licensing for $23/user/month

    Enterprise E5 licensing for $25/user/month

    Billing Frequency: Monthly

  • Common Pros: Office Suite is fully connected, large storage capacities, constant updates and improvement, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are industry standards, accessibility

    Common Cons: Suite is bloated; no use for some apps, web versions can be unstable, learning curve in connecting apps properly, some mobile apps lacking

  • 30-day free trials of any Office 365 plan can be attained through a Microsoft Partner like Syvantis, or from the Microsoft Office site.

  • Newly available features, tools, and bug fixes in Office 365 are often bundled into Version or Build releases and are announced together. At least one Version is released per month, but all features may not be made available at the same time.

    All Office 365 Apps get their share of updates, but the most highly used ones like Outlook, Excel, and Word get the bulk of attention.

  • There are nearly 3000 apps available for integration with Office 365 in Microsoft AppSource across categories like analytics, marketing, and sales. These add-on apps extend functionality and allow you to connect Office 365 with the other business applications, like Adobe and PayPal.

    Microsoft PowerApps, included in Office 365 subscriptions, is a low-code development solution that enables users to build, test, run, and share custom-built apps. Connect PowerApps with your Office 365 data to embed the apps you build directly into various areas of Office

  • Licensing: Similar to Microsoft’s business app plans, Google offers several licensing options.

    The most popular plan is Business Standard for $12/user/month

    Enterprise license pricing is available upon request

    Billing Frequency: Monthly

  • Common Pros: Customer support, ease of use and collaboration, familiarity between apps, files always saved and up to date, simple navigation

    Common Cons: Sheets & Docs not on feature parity with Excel & Word especially for advanced users, converting between Office and G Suite formats, internet connection required, lack of customization options

  • Google offers 14-day free trials of Google Workspace, available directly on the pricing page of the G Suite website.

  • New features, training resources, and bug fixes are released each week in Google Workspace, but generally do not follow a schedule. The release calendar shows what features were released by day with links to detailed information about those features, how they’re used, and other relevant facts.

  • With Google Workspace, there are limited options for automating tasks and/or processes. Google Apps Script is the free, out-of-the-box option, but it’s code-heavy and requires some advanced knowledge to make it useful. Apps Script is better for increasing functionality of existing suite apps than it is for automation, but automation is still possible.

    There are third party tools for automation purposes in the Google App MarketPlace, though they may carry additional costs.