Office 365 vs Google Apps: first look

Microsoft has opened its online Office 365 for public beta testing and there are already first reviews, so we can already judge of how this service will justify its label "Google Apps killer". Recall, Office 365 includes online versions of Exchange, Sharepoint, Lync and the office suite Office Web Apps. So the functionality of Office 365 is even better than in Google Apps. But "killing Google Apps" hardly possible because these are quite different products. Office 365 is more appropriate for medium and large companies, who used to work in Microsoft-oriented IT infrastructure, that already have an IT administrator who knows Active Directory, Exchange and Sharepoint settings. Without such administrator you can't manage Office 365, it's not so simple as Google Apps.

Office 365 is likely to win if the decision to move online is taken by IT department (not by users). It really provides are lot of administrative tools. But the end-users will often suffer because of little details. For example, Office 365 doesn't work properly in mobile browsers and provides native app only for Windows Phone. Or, in order to simultaneously edit online Word document, users need to have desktop Word 2010 installed. In general, Office 365 is still tightly bundled to Office 2010 desktop suite and that may result in lower pace of innovation with this cloud offering.

Unlike Google Apps there is no free version in Office 365. The price starts at $6/month per user. Of course, Microsoft has the free Windows Live Office, but this is not the same. In this sense, Google Apps has more coherent strategy, providing the same service for free and for monthly fee (with difference in functionality). In addition, the cost of the Google Apps paid version ($ 50 per year per user) - is lower in any case.

Another advantage of Google Apps - is Google Apps Marketplace. It was definitely good idea and many developers have integrated their products with Google Apps. In response, Microsoft has unveiled Office 365 Marketplace. The idea is the same, but we'll see if they succeed in attracting developers.

The first Office 365 testers also report of the large number of bugs in the service. Of course it doesn't mean that they won't be fixed, but it means that the working version won't appear in the near future. Moreover the beta is available not everywhere - only 38 countries are able to participate in this public beta and it supports 16 languages including, English, Chinese (traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Spanish, Swedish and Romanian.

See also: Top 10 Office suites