How does Sharepoint compare to Google Apps?

Sean,

I have absolutely no problem with that analogy at all, and at the end of the day it is "what is the right tool to fit for the organisation".

Although historically correct, today I don't think the "small business" argument still stands (when Google Apps is $5 per seat .. and Office 365 is $6 per seat?).

Office 365 also offers online "Office Web Apps" meaning you CAN use Excel / Word / PowerPoint on any browser, any OS, and 25GB Exchange mailboxes per user is certainly nothing to be sniffed at.

Personally, from a pure business perspective, having an Ad-Free environment, with globally replicated 99.999% financially backed SLAs almost wins the argument straight off the bat.

With Office 365 / SharePoint you ALSO have the flexibility of a cloud-hosted application development platform (through Sandbox Solutions) which at the moment Google Apps cannot touch.

As Seb Matthews says, the next iteration of each product will certainly be interesting, but Microsoft has most definately caught up and overtaken the competition in this space.

I think you may have been sucking down on the Google Cool-aid a little too much.

I'd like to see what your list as the 5 services Office 365 offers compared to the *60^ that Google Apps offer?

I think the whole it runs in a browser is a little short sighted being as most organisations have desktop PCs running some form of Office anyway. I'd be hoping they'd have the latest service packs on their clients, so not sure if this is a bad thing for supporting Office 365. Google's vision of everyone just uses a Chromebook is a long way off in Enterprise space.

As Martin mentioned also, Office 365 has a sophisticated Development Platform and a HUGE open community of .NET/SharePoint developers to assist with this.

From an Exchange and Lync perspective, I think everyone would agree that comparing those to the Google Apps equivalent is pointless due to the strengths of Microsoft's plaftorm here.

I think I'll write an article on this rather than continue here...

Caty,

Sharepoint and Google Apps aren't really the same category of product.

Microsoft's Office365 is what you would compare directly with Google Apps. Sharepoint is more of a document repository and collaboration point. It can also be a platform upon which to host/support collaboration apps, such as help desk knowledgebase.

In many organizations, people make a choice between setting up a Wiki and Sharepoint, or a document repository vs Sharepoint.

Sharepoint vs Google Apps is not a comparison I would expect to see...

I would respectfully disagree with Andrew on this point.

Google Apps does compete directly against SharePoint in many ways. I see a lot of business units at large enterprises turning to Google Apps as a way to get around their frustrations with SharePoint.

IMO, in a world connected by the Internet, SharePoint is obsolete. Google Docs and Google Sites offer a great deal of functionality that can be leveraged in the place of SharePoint.

Google Docs provides a repository and collaboration point without the need to leverage Sites. The collaboration features are much better as employees can work with one instance of the document simultaneously avoiding the common SharePoint scenario with the document downloaded to the desktop and kept there for future reference. Any employee can create collections of documents for their teams. Google Docs also supports a wide variety of file types. Google Sites provides the ability to create document libraries, online forms, shared calendars, employee profiles, benefits information, and any other content shared via a team site.

Teams turn to Google Sites because they can be created, maintained and changed by any employee without the need to wait for IT. The sites are extremely flexible at the hands of any employee rather than the small army required to continuously customize SharePoint. You also avoid all the costs and headaches associated with the volume of data created and stored within the solution.

http://josephtierney.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-sites-more-functionality-tha...

Joe..

No offense, but you clearly know very little about the capabilities of SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft's "SharePoint online" offering as part of Office 365.

Pretty much every single feature you described that Google Apps offer is also offered in Spades by SharePoint..

Martin and Kanwal. I would assume you guys would agree :-)

Martin - no offense taken. I have extensive experience working with SharePoint 2003 - 2010. I was part of a team that worked on the code for SharePoint 2010 in preparation for its first public demo. I am more familiar with SharePoint than I'd care to admit.

I didn't suggest SharePoint could not deliver the features I listed - just that Google Apps also delivered them - thus answering the question of "do they compete?". I think the important aspect most people miss is not that both suites deliver certain features but who those features are available to.

Do I think Google Apps delivers more functionality that SharePoint? Yes I do. http://josephtierney.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-sites-more-functionality-tha...

We'll have to agree to disagree :-)

Joe, I am quite surprised by this. I can only go by what you have written to justify your stance.

"in a world connected by the Internet, SharePoint is obsolete"
This statement is complete nonsense to me, as SharePoint is based on internet technology.
In fact, SharePoint Online / Office 365 (and even BPOS which has been around for years) is an "internet only" offering.

"The collaboration features are much better as employees can work with one instance of the document simultaneously avoiding the common SharePoint scenario with the document downloaded to the desktop and kept there for future reference"

This feature has been offered by SharePoint 2010 / Office 2010 for over a year since it's release (and was in Beta back in 2009!). The online "Office Web Apps" offering also offers exactly the same functionality.

These features have been in SharePoint since 2007 ..
* Any employee can create collections of documents for their teams
* supports a wide variety of file types
* ability to create document libraries, online forms, shared calendars, employee profiles, benefits information, and any other content shared via a team site

And as for this statement:
"they can be created, maintained and changed by any employee without the need to wait for IT. The sites are extremely flexible at the hands of any employee rather than the small army required to continuously customize SharePoint."

You don't need any IT input to create sites in SharePoint .. there is even a "Self-Service Site Creation" function. The sites / lists and libraries are just as flexible as anything Google can offer ...
As for the "small army" .. I have yet to work on a SharePoint customisation project that was (a) required (as opposed to a nice to have) or b) needed more than 6 developers (with most typical projects being 2-3 at the most!)
In any such case, the customisations are OPTIONAL .. in each instance adding value to the client which they are happy to consume because they get a decent return on investment.

I have personally implemented many SharePoint solutions which required no customisations what-so-ever and the only requirement was training and understanding.

The final part was this:
"You also avoid all the costs and headaches associated with the volume of data created and stored within the solution"

This can be said about ANY "software as a service" offering. Microsoft have been offering BPOS hosting for years, and Office 365 comes even closer to this than anything!

I was also on the TAP "pre-beta" program for SharePoint 2010, and I would have thought you would agree that there is no feature in Google Apps that SharePoint cannot provide just as easily, and just as simply (with one or two small exceptions).

The fact that SharePoint offers a boat-load of other enhancements that go WAY over and above Google Apps .. for almost exactly the same price?? In my mind there is no competition at all.

I have to agree with Martin on this. Firstly - you can't compare Google Apps and SharePoint alone - Google Apps provides Email, Calendaring, Sites, Talk and other products that compete much directly with Office 365 (and now, since the recent upgrade they do offer almost all their Google based services).

If we, however, first try to compare the features that SharePoint has, and the features that Google Apps provide; we find there is an immediate disparity; SharePoint provides far more. Where, in Google Apps, do we have any form of records management, for instance? Where, do we have a capability to host workflow? These are just two examples that can be expanded upon.

If we then directly compare SharePoint online from Office365 to Google Apps; we still have a disparity. Sandboxed solutions have no equivalence in Google Apps.

Don't get me wrong - I actually love Google Apps, and think it has a place - IMO its email offering is far better than Exchange online; and Google Talk is pretty useful; though Lync has better integration options.

However, when we try to compare SharePoint online and Google Apps that's when the Google favour falls over for me. Sites are terrible in Google Apps; Google Docs and their collaborative features are OK, but still no match for full blown office applications (and don't get me started on OpenOffice, as an aside).

Overall; no comparison; they're different products and have different niches - but Office365 certainly has a better offering by having SharePoint online as part of its offering, and this could be the real differentiator.

If you decouple SharePoint and Office 365 and then directly compare Office 365 to Google Apps you probably have an apples to apples comparison.

As a SharePoint guy, I'm plainly in the SharePoint/Office 365 camp, so to provide balance I have to refer to an external reference:

http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/229401751/first-look-microsofts-office-365-will...

This might not quite be a "nuff said" situation but it is rather sweeping. I, for one, am looking forward to how Google respond with the next revision of Apps as this will be a determining factor in what keeps Office/SharePoint Wave 15 (and by extension Office 365 v2) fresh and relevant in a couple of years time.

Nuff said.

If you are a small company with no development resources and low capital, Gapps is very helpful, from email (gmail) to 3rd party apps and Google Sites is a very simple way to setup an Intranet and post shared calendars. I will agree Sharepoint is the best solution, but the best solution is not always the right solution for the customer. As engineers we often get into religious debates when the customer is agnostic.

I work for a mid sized company that could have done Sharepoint, but chose to go Gapps for mail, calendaring, resource scheduling, Google Sites (Intranet) and GDocs for sharing ideas and collaborating. We still find our finance people using excel, but just about everything else moved to the cloud.

Google Sites has been great since it is so easy to use, team managers and leaders have adopted it for their team communication. GMail has been surprisingly sturdy. We deviate with some 3rd party apps like Gliffy as a Visio replacement (far superior) and Sliderocket for presentations.

This is just my point-of-view as a GApps customer.

This model works for us since we run Mac, PC, Linux and now Chrome OS in our organization. Also we run Android, Blackberry and iOS. GApps gives us total flexibility.

Martin,

I don't think anyone would question your knowledge of SharePoint.

I would encourage you to learn more about Google Apps for Business even if it's just from the view point of learning more about the competition as well as learning more about Office 365.

- The SLA for BPOS is 99.9% based on MSFT's own documentation. I'm not sure the SLA for Office 365 has been published but I've seen 99.9% on MSFT presentations. That's three 9's, not five. The SLA for Google Apps is also 99.9%. BPOS/365 do have planned downtime windows, Apps does not. MSFT comps cash for downtime, Google comps service.

- There have never been ads in Google Apps for Business, Government or Education.

- Office Web Apps require their desktop counterparts or SharePoint in a business environment or the applications are useless.

- On-premises requirements for 365 include: Microsoft Office 2010 or Office 2007 Service Pack 2, Office 2008 for Mac and Microsoft Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition, Office 2011 for Mac and Outlook 2011 for Mac, .NET Framework 2.0 or later, and Microsoft Lync 2010

- On-premises requirements for Google Apps: browser

- Office 365 includes 5 services, Google Apps includes about 60

- I do look forward to seeing the next iteration of Microsoft's Online offerings ... if they stay on schedule it should be sometime in late 2014.

- The release cycle for Google Apps is about every 2 weeks or Admins can throttle the schedule based on their preferences: http://whatsnew.googleapps.com/

- BPOS/365 is a product built on the 2007 server products and the 2010 server products respectively.

- Google Apps is a service

- One firm makes money with online services, the other does not: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-online-operating-in...

Agree to disagree. Should be a fun ride regardless.

I use the sophisticated justification, "the Web rules and the desktop drools" as my guide.

i definitely follow Sean's view on this: Implementing and integrating your applications with Google Apps has several benefits.

You can actually reduce your operating expenses by integrating Google Apps with your cloud applications to enable data and document-sharing. Thus, several users can contribute to documents at the same time, increasing their productivity. On the same note, you can use Google Sites to manage and track a project thus reducing the need to invest in expensive proprietary software or embed project documents or notes into email instead of creating multiple documents tracking the same project.

There are plenty of third party apps (also usually very cheap) which integrates nicely with your Google Apps domain: find here a quick review of our favorite 6 http://www.getapp.com/blog/productivity-integrated-google-apps-business/