Microsoft Office/SharePoint 2010 and Google Apps: Skinning The Same Cat?

Microsoft would love for us to believe that SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 are so completely superior to Google’s Apps offerings that businesses would be foolish to adopt Apps over a Microsoft-centric solution. In the past, Microsoft users haven’t really been compelled to take on their desktop offerings, and while Office 2007 was excellent, many organizations didn’t feel the upgrade from 2003 was a must-have. But now with Windows 7, Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 there seem to be more reasons to upgrade or potentially adopt/grow a Microsoft ecosystem.

Google, on the other hand, has a platform for development around enterprise collaboration and has opened all of its APIs to Google Apps, allowing developers to create a variety of applications that leverage the cloud-based, collaborative features of Apps. Developers are provided with sophisticated tools to extend the capabilities of Apps, suggesting that organizations could build their own powerful applications within the framework of Google Apps (just as Microsoft shops can within the framework of SharePoint).

There are definitely things that Google needs to do better to meet the needs of more complex organizations. More granular rights, roles and permissions for groups and individuals is an absolute must and needs to happen ASAP if Google wants to counter many of Microsoft’s Google-isn’t-ready-for-the-enterprise arguments.

Ultimately, whether Microsoft Office and SharePoint 2010 or Google Apps works best for your organization, you have to see which platform works best for your processes and business rules. Google Apps and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 may be taking two different approaches, but they are about the same thing: getting work done.

Tags: compare, comparison, Google Apps, Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server