Office 365 v Google Apps

[sanjiv]

Good morning

Looking to take email into the cloud. Will have just under 10 users. Currently using Microsoft Exchange with Microsoft Outlook.

I like Microsoft Outlook as a desktop client, rather than using something web based. A key requirement is shared mailboxes with multiple aliases, so everyone can see the email and work on the email in a single mailbox.

Not really interested in anything but email at the moment but will look to take Documents and Spreadsheets into the cloud later on. We currently have departmental permissions on folders than can be accessed. I understand Google include all of this in their £3/user/month package but with Office 365, you have to upgrade to the £8 package. Is this correct?

In your experience, what are your views on using these two products (open to further alternatives)?

Thanks
Sanjiv

P.S. Would also like to take local backups of email etc.

 

[Deleted member 162294]

The £8.40 small business option is the only one that provide a desktop version of Outlook. I don't know about shared mailboxes since I'm a single user. I do know that Outlook is very flexible and can interface with just about any mail provider, I'm currently using it to manage Google Mail.

 

[sanjiv]

How about for web versions of Office? Say if I already have the desktop version?

 

[squeekwheel]

Google Docs are free aren't they? If you don't work with documents that much then it might be worth to try it - will save a lot of money

 

[sanjiv]

Documents may only be used a little if we want to be able to work on a single document at the same time.

How does the reliability of the two compare?

 

[StevensOnln1]

Reliability of anything web based will depend heavily on the reliability of your internet connection.

 

[sanjiv]

Reliability of anything web based will depend heavily on the reliability of your internet connection.

My web connection is reliable enough and I may look to add a second backup line (possibly with Virgin in case of BT error) as I take on more cloud services, but how reliable have Google and Microsoft been in peoples experience?

 

[squeekwheel]

We constantly use Google Docs in our company - only because it's all online and you can share documents between your employees - they can all see the latest version of the file and add to it.

 

[DesignerNick]

Google Apps have the sync tool which you can use with Outlook which to be honest you probably won't notice much difference when using it apart from the spinning icon down by the clock when it updates. It then syncs your contacts, calendars and emails between Outlook and Google.

You can take offline backups using Outlook and exporting them to PST but there is a good tool called Spanning Backup which will do all of the backups of the mailboxes, calendars, contacts and documents for you online. If you ever want to restore you just click login, do a search for what you want, the date you want it from and press restore and job done.

You can work on a single mailbox easily, will you have it so it has a main address and then person a, person b etc as aliases? It might be an idea to then use Labels for filing so you can see who has dealt with what (if everybody is using the same mailbox)

Will everybody have their own mailbox as well as the shared one or is it literally just the shared one?

Migrating from Exchange to Google is a breeze also.

If you need any advice, feel free to drop me a PM about Google Apps.

 

[sanjiv]

Everyone has their own mailbox plus a general enquiries mailbox, with further aliases and filters within it.

Spanning backup looks good but pricey! Doubles the cost of Google Apps. Thinking of setting up free outlook.com and yahoo.co.uk account where a copy of all sent and received mail is placed as a backup. Set it all up on their free trial and it seems to work very well.

What do you think?

Thanks for the offer for advice.

 

[sanjiv]

Google Apps have the sync tool which you can use with Outlook which to be honest you probably won't notice much difference when using it apart from the spinning icon down by the clock when it updates. It then syncs your contacts, calendars and emails between Outlook and Google.

You can take offline backups using Outlook and exporting them to PST but there is a good tool called Spanning Backup which will do all of the backups of the mailboxes, calendars, contacts and documents for you online. If you ever want to restore you just click login, do a search for what you want, the date you want it from and press restore and job done.

You can work on a single mailbox easily, will you have it so it has a main address and then person a, person b etc as aliases? It might be an idea to then use Labels for filing so you can see who has dealt with what (if everybody is using the same mailbox)

Will everybody have their own mailbox as well as the shared one or is it literally just the shared one?

Migrating from Exchange to Google is a breeze also.

If you need any advice, feel free to drop me a PM about Google Apps.

Quick question about migration. Currently, I keep all of my mail folders nested under the Inbox in Outlook with Exchange. Should I keep them under Inbox or alongside Inbox for them to import in a neat and tidy fashion?

Thanks
Sanjiv