Google Apps vs Office 365 - why the conflict?

It’s like the Beatles vs. the Stones. Or Man Utd vs Man City. It seems that these days it’s either one or the other. You either jump into the Microsoft camp and offer Office 365 services, or you shun the mighty behemoth and go for Google Apps.

Each camps’ supporters will bellow the relative merits of their chosen side; Google, the giant killer, offering a quick and easy solution that gets the job done with the minimum of fuss or requirements. Or Microsoft, offering a robust, proven technology that integrates well with users’ existing software.

But should you be choosing your business technology based on the whims of the moment? And should we, as an IT support provider, be offering services based on some notion of partisanship and loyalty to a chosen brand.

Personally, I think the answer is that we shouldn’t. As intimated above, each solution has it’s own merits and businesses will be suited to one or the other depending on business need. And it is that which should inform the decision on whether a solution is good or not - the specific business need - not whether we are bigger fans of Microsoft or Google.