Google Apps or Microsoft Office?

Choosing software to make our lives easier is getting much more complex. Doesn’t make much since, right? Microsoft has always assured us in having an amazing easy suite of applications; Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, etc. All of a sudden, suites start popping up online everywhere. Internet search-giant Google has come to market with a reliable and low cost suite of web-based tools: word processing, spreadsheets, calendar, e-mail, and more, all packaged as Google Apps. There are then the rest of the gang following behind such as Zoho, ThinkFree, and Corel’s new WordPerfect Lightning; not to mention the handful of open-source applications such as OpenOffice and StarOffice. All of these feature the ability to do word processing, spreadsheets, and more. However, which do you choose? What will give you the most for your money or is less really more?

There are pros and cons to each service, but for the money and feature set, I would choose between Google Apps and Office 2007. Basic versions of Google Apps are free and feature-packed, if you don’t mind limited storage capability and customer support. If you want more, there is always the premium option with most service like these. Premium packages cost all of $50 a year.

“Johnson says SF Bay spends about $1,200 a year for Google Apps Premier, a fraction of the roughly $10,000 it would have cost to install software from Microsoft. He says he looked at other Web-based software, but decided Google’s size and reputation makes it the safest bet.”

Google stresses ease of use and downfalls of not using their services: “Sign up and you will never have to face another Microsoft upgrade or crash…” A feature that I like is the ability to access your stuff from any computer with an Internet connection. There are no downloads, backups, or new hardware to deal with.

I have used Google Apps before and love it. It is simple and easy to use. However, being a frequent Office user (Year 2000 and beyond) I have learned and grown accustom to certain keystrokes, tips, tricks, and just so much more comfortable with Office. In addition, if you are not online, Google Apps cannot be used. For a while, I have heard rumors that they are coming out with a desktop application to fix this, but I have yet to see anything yet. Editing Office documents in Google Apps is strictly a cut-and-paste affair. I am not a worrier like some, but I am somewhat concerned with the security. Although stated to be “secure,” I fear anyone is able to read and mess with my documents.

Office is cool, especially Office 2007. I have been using Office since I was in middle school and until this day, find it to be my main application suite. When I purchase a new computer, I also get Office. Office is also available for Mac also, so my Mac is equipped with the Office suite as well. If you gather up your money for the full version of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and run it on a new PC or Mac with at least two gigs of memory and a 1.8 GHz processor, you will be rewarded with an array of features. The really neat thing I love about Office is the ability to integrate with other software on my system. My calendar information can be incorporated into emails (and vice versa) and I can blog on Word and place some statistics from Excel and send over a fax to Tom. There is just a variety of cool things you can do with Office. Just like Google Apps, there are some cons: It can be hard to find why Office’s extensive feature set is the way it is. In Outlook, your “contacts” are different from your “business contacts.” Outlook “lists” sometimes flow into Business Contact Manager, which is annoying. Microsoft does not support Adobe formats such as PDF and Acrobat. In addition, Office is rather pricey, sometimes costing well over $500! They are little things that cause the biggest frustrations sometimes.

So which one? Which will benefit you mostly? I enjoy using both. Each has something I like more or less, but to put it in a different perspective, if money is not an issue and you need to turn out dazzling presentations and spreadsheets, go with Office 2007. If group effort is important to your business and you don’t need to produce slick documents or do complex financial analysis, try the far less expensive Google Apps.

For some, it is a little easier to make that decision due to the popularity of the products. Not many people have heard much of the “Office” alternatives, so Office is first choice. But when these other applications suites start getting bigger and better - and they will - it’ll be a little harder to choose. If Google plans on being the next Office and something worth choosing over Office in most cases, it is clear that they are going to have to woo the millions of Office user out there. With Google’s strong software development team and their dedication, it will not be too long before the decision between the two giants become crystal clear, only reiterating less is actually more.