GOOGLE vs. OFFICE 365
The epic battle has begun.
Personally, I have grown up using Microsoft and so I have a soft spot for the familiarity of tools like Office, Excel and Powerpoint, but as a Teacher, I have seen the value of the browser-based tools that Google offers. Our school is Google focused and I have been working with the Google tools more than Microsoft over the last two years.
They may offer similar programs, but that doesn't mean they are the same. People still have personal preferences for different reasons. I will write a short comparison of the two and then share my opinion of what I prefer as a teacher.
Both are cloud based services, so all work gets saved to the cloud and can be accessed online.
Office 365 also offers desktop programs to be used offline (which can be a definite advantage at times).
Both offer a program for:
Writing (Docs/Word)
Spreadsheets (Sheets/Excel)
Presentations (Slides/Powerpoint)
Email (Gmail/Outlook)
Storage (Drive/ Skydrive)
Video conferencing (Hangouts/Lync)
The both also have an app for note taking. I have been using Keep on my phone for years and didn't even realize it was a Google app, but One Note I just learned about and after exploring it a bit, I think it is actually a better program if I wanted to take notes of lectures. It has a better system of organization and tabs that you can name yourself and it's just a more organized overall app.
When I started the comparison, I thought Google was the only one with a social media app (Google +) but as it turns out, Microsoft has a MUCH LESSER KNOWN social media network called So.cl. I would say that Google plus is the leader in that department after just discovering that so.cl exists!
Now after familiarizing myself with Office 365 a bit, I will declare the winner of this battle (in my books anyways).
Although I have a natural inclination towards Microsoft Office mainly just because it's so familiar to me and so I think that it's 'user friendly'. But when I started to look at it again, I started to remember my old frustrations when I used Word for example, and I just wanted to change simple formatting and I had to sort through what felt like hundreds of menu options to find the right tool. There was a lot of Office that I never did learn how to use. Google on the other hand was relatively easy to learn when I started a couple of years ago, and I don't seem to have as many annoying problems to troubleshoot. I also use MORE of the options than I ever did with Office.
I know personally, out of habit, if I had a desktop version of Office, I would use that out of convenience when at home (instead of opening the internet browser first) and undoubtedly forget to save my work and then kick myself for not using the online cloud version when at work the next day and unable to get the work I did the night before. I think that making a habit of using Google's cloud based service has been really great for me because all of my work is at my fingertips from anywhere, and not sitting uselessly on my computer at home.
You do get more storage with Office 365, but I have used Google for 2 years and have not used it up.
Overall I just think Google is simpler, better organized and easy to learn. I also find it very quick. I haven't dealt with any saving lags like I have with Office 365.
To each their own though with these opponents. Each has their strengths and in the end I think it comes down to personal preference.
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