Exclusive: a true Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 benchmarking
In the transition to digitization and the cloud, an important step is certainly the choice of the mail system and the file system: Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 is a necessary comparison. Choosing the right mail system is the basis for a business organization geared towards increasing productivity and efficiency.
Companies have to choose the best technology to adopt, therefore, the decision is often between the two most important players, Google and Microsoft. They offer two productivity suites, called Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, respectively, seemingly similar and at similar prices.
After years of using both technologies at our customers, we have a clear vision and precise data on which to base our comparison. Premising that Utixo is both a primary partner of Microsoft and a Google Workspace partner, in this article we want to give a real and useful advice to our partners and customers. We emphasize that this is an analysis that starts from business needs, Utixo’s reference market. Consequently, the considerations may differ for private individuals.
The various comparisons that can easily be found are usually superficial. The considerations reported here are, instead, very specific key points, which are not found in other analyses.
Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 comparison
- Desktop APPS: Microsoft 365 allows you to install on your PC the same APPS used in the cloud, or the same Office applications, which are now a de facto standard in office automation. Google Workspace on the other hand works only in cloud mode, through the use of a browser (cloud native).
Choice of
plans: Google does not allow you to have different accounts with different pricing plans such as Business Starter and Business Standard, all accounts must be at the same level. This means that if only one account needs more space or features than a higher profile, all other accounts will need to be upgraded, generating a higher cost. Instead, Microsoft allows you to manage the licensing of individual accounts.- Windows integration: Microsoft 365 is tightly integrated with the Windows operating system, many components are already pre-installed such as, for example, One Drive. This simplifies the management of the entire IT system and lowers costs (TCO). In the corporate environment this is a factor that makes the difference and the advantages are increasingly evident as the number of jobs increases.
- Additional features: Microsoft 365 allows you to extend security capabilities, reaching complete endpoint management in software distribution. In this way it allows you to manage and automate the distribution of software and the complete management of devices. On the contrary, Google Workspace has a better management of the Android part and Chrome OS, its operating system.
- Management delegation: Google Workspace is not designed to allow an external provider, an outsourcer, to manage your environment. So, it has no delegation mechanisms to management, which, instead, Microsoft 365 implements. The latter, in fact, allows the delegation of the entire environment to a service provider, which can optimize management. In this way, the provider can operate on multiple customers in multi-tenant mode and take advantage of the different tools designed for this purpose.
- Single sign-on (SSO ): At the account and identity management level, Microsoft 365 enables full integration between your on-premises IT environment and your cloud (Azure) environment. This means that with a single account you can access any IT resource, starting from your PC.
Conclusions and advice
Finally, from this Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 comparison, we can deduce that for a company that uses a purely Windows infrastructure, the use of Microsoft 365 is certainly a big benefit, both from a technical and economic point of view. In addition, there is a strong positive impact on the TCO of the infrastructure. The bigger the company, the more visible the profit.
This competitive advantage is certainly due to Microsoft’s possession of Windows Operating Systems, used in all companies, and its ability to integrate with them.
Thus, Microsoft takes advantage of the competitive advantage of its monopoly on both client and server operating systems, which Google cannot do.
Companies that don’t base their IT on Microsoft, but mostly use MAC or Chrome OS, on the other hand, can consider Google Workspace as a viable solution. On the other hand, Google has greater penetration in education, where the dynamics are different. In part, however, this market share also comes from very aggressive pricing policies, applied in the past.
We would love to hear your opinions, considerations and advice on the subject, including from you. Leave a comment!
