If 2010 saw the wide adoption of cloud based email and collaboration software, 2011 was the year of "integrated" cloud solutions. Businesses want to avoid the "cloud sprawl" of managing multiple point cloud solutions and creating new data silos. They want to access email and other team collaboration tools from a single cloud suite.
The 2 giants of software are sparring in this arena with Office 365 and Google Apps. It has been identified a strategic battlefront, even as the larger "Google vs. Microsoft" war rages on. But to see this market as MS Office 365 vs. Google Apps play is myopic. The market also has smaller but more experienced players. We bring you a factual Office 365 vs. Google Apps comparison, also including HyperOffice, which has been serving SMB focused cloud solutions since 1998.
Released publicly in July 2011, Office 365 is the successor of Microsoft BPOS. Even as Microsoft promotes its 2010 series of its on-premise enterprise solutions, the cloud is critical to its future, as Steve Ballmer repeatedly emphasizes. Office 365 is the next generation of Microsoft BPOS, and is a refurbished and integrated online version of its on-premise solutions - Exchange and SharePoint 2010. Office 365 supposedly improves upon BPOS, which experienced persistent downtime issues, and adds Office Web Apps in response to Google Docs. Have these changes made Office 365 more desirable?
Google Apps brings a new "web based" approach to enterprise collaboration software. Google Apps is positioned as next generation enterprise software, specifically targeting on premise Microsoft messaging and collaboration products - Exchange and SharePoint. More and more companies are signing up, and seeing it as a viable alternative to Microsoft and others. It has generated massive media interest with Microsoft Office 365 vs. Google Apps comparisons rising to a fury. But with limited paid customers for Google Apps, its future success remains to be seen.
As the battle gets meaner, we bring an objective, feature to feature comparison of Microsoft BPOS and Google Apps. Also included is HyperOffice Collaboration Suite, a specialist in online messaging and collaboration software with a laser focus towards SMBs, having served this segment for the last 10 years.