TipsMake.com - When Microsoft officially announced Office 365 service, it was also the time when the company officially jumped into the online office application market. Until now, Microsoft has dominated in this field for the Desktop platform, but with the online market it will be very difficult, because it will surely face many other big names, especially Google Apps and Zoho Docs. In the following article, we will perform some preliminary tests and evaluations of the features, characteristics, operation methods and prices, the cost of each service for users.
All three of the services we covered in this test are Google Apps, Office 365 and Zoho Docs, all offering users some basic tools like word processing, spreadsheet creation and presentation files. . besides that are the support features such as email, online storage, sharing real-time models . Along with the appearance of such utilities, we ourselves are Those who benefit the most in the war for the market, start since the Open Office suite was announced to compete with Microsoft Office. However, the choice as well as the final decision remains with the user.
Applications, feature systems are the main factors that influence the choice of products, free or paid, online or not. But if all of these criteria do not meet the requirements of the user community, then comparing or evaluating them becomes meaningless.
1. Basic functions:
If you are familiar with using Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010, it will probably feel more comfortable and easy to use with Office 365. Although the interface is a bit different, but the basic functionality is still preserved. :
On the other hand, the same Zoho service is quite similar to the Microsoft Office version before being added to the Ribbon interface, specifically Office 2003. Zoho stands out with a basic and unified feature system like editing, manage text content via the menu in the form of drop - down, change from uppercase to lowercase and vice versa .
If compared, the menu of the Google Apps function is unclear, perhaps only suitable for those who prefer to use the old version of the application, another point is that Google Apps limits users in the definition. text format and some other support functions.
And Office 365 applications offer more options for fonts and formatting than Google Apps and Zoho . More importantly, these fonts and formats will automatically align and be compatible with all other online text applications. We can open Office Web Apps directly inside another program in a single operation, and Microsoft Office applications can save document files directly on online services, through which users have Can access and use their materials at any time.
As for spreadsheets - SpreadSheet is unfortunately not a service that can meet the needs of users compared to the program for Desktop. Basically, these tools still satisfy the user, but there are still a lot of necessary advanced functions. In it, Office 365 seems a bit better than the other two competitors because it supports macros and some basic calculation formulas.
Therefore, in this first part, we can see that Office 365 is the dominant one over the other two competitors, Google Apps and Zoho Docs.
2. How to manage files and storage capacity:
Zoho equips each user account with 1GB of online data storage, and if they want to use more, they have to pay $ 3 per 5GB within 1 month. The storage space allocated to users' data and email is completely separate, which can be 10GB or 15GB depending on the user service package selected. And another point is that Zoho's services limit email attachments to 10MB .
In addition, Google Apps offers a data storage service pack with 1GB capacity, but is superior to Zoho because of the capacity of email support up to 25GB , as well as attachments up to 25MB. Most recently, Google has been shaking hands with Box.net to integrate Google Docs with Box.net's diverse storage system. Basically, Box's services offer 5GB of free storage, and after combining with Google, users will enjoy 6GB of data storage.
And the rest is Office 365 , which provides the largest data storage capability for users in the initial default mode. The basic Office 365 plan supports us with 2GB of storage with SharePoint Online service, if you want to use more, you will have to pay $ 2.5 per GB in 1 month. As for email, every 1 user account will have 25GB of storage, and of course this number will change depending on which service package we choose, while higher packages of Office 365 are not limited. Capacity. Besides, Office 365 also supports users with email attachments with the largest capacity - 35MB .
When making simple comparisons with specific numbers above, we can easily see that Office 365 continues to be the leader in this race.
3. Ability to share and expand functions:
With SharePoint Workspace , we can sync data from Office 365 SharePoint Online to access and use offline style. Google Apps and Zoho Docs do not have this support, but instead, users can use some other support tools such as Box.net or Dropbox instead. However, without this online synchronization support, offline data usage will be pretty much restricted.
Office 365 , on the other hand, provides users with the ability to interact directly with Excel and OneNote format files, but doesn't work with Word and PowerPoint . And recently, Microsoft has officially announced the user information function for Word Web App, but only works when users share files from Windows Live SkyDrive storage system from company or organization. or enterprise and Word Web App , this function does not work with Office 365.
However, Office 365 compensates for that gap by supporting users better when processing documents via Lync Online service - we can share, access and process any document file with real-time mode. In addition, external accounts and friends can also participate in online chats via the corresponding Lync client or Web - based application.
And the rest, Google Apps and Zoho Docs provide users with better services right inside their application, more specifically the ability to edit data and documents with multiple accounts at the same time. . Besides, we can share Google Apps files outside the account, but only with Google accounts. On the other hand, Zoho is more diverse with the ability to support any email service, and allows users to create or log into Zoho via Facebook, Google, or Yahoo.
And this time, the advantage is temporarily tilted towards Google Apps.
4. Compatibility:
Currently, there are still many businesses that use Microsoft products to apply in their models and organizations. And today, the normality applied in each type of document which is used according to the needs of the work is increasingly highly appreciated, and therefore, they also face many difficulties in moving from Microsoft Office applications. to use online services.
Up to now, Google has made a huge step forward to improve their products to compete directly with Microsoft, but the reality is not enough. Google Apps can handle many Microsoft Office file formats, but lacks other advanced functions, such as creating tables, inserting images, headers, footers, changing formatting .
Similarly Zoho Docs, but more diverse than Google Apps in support formats. You can export available XML-based text files used in Office 2007 and 2010 , while Google is limited to saving document files to * .doc, * .xls, and * .ppt.
As for Office 365, we don't need to do too much editing or formatting documents from other Desktop programs. And this time, Office 365 once again won.
5. Performance when working on Mobile and browser:
Keep on doing a little more testing with performance on mobile devices and browsers, not surprisingly, Office 365 puts the best performance with Windows Phone 7 and Internet Explorer 9 , while Google Apps proved superior on Android and Chrome . On the other hand, Zoho has no platform to support Mobile as well as other browsers.
And with the latest update - Mango, the official name of Windows Phone 7.5, mobile platforms will have the ability to integrate with Office 365 and Windows Live SkyDrive , thereby contributing to increase the power of Microsoft in dominate this market.
On the other hand, if we use Google Apps, Android is the best choice, more specifically the Google Apps for Android application, and many related jobs will be completed faster through the browser, especially on smartphones.
Office 365 and Google Apps work well if we only view files on iPhone or iPad, but if you want to edit it, it is completely different. With Office 365 , text files will be opened via browser-based mode, and when you want to edit, you must use the Open In . function of the operating system.
Google Apps allows us to edit content via Mobile mode, the system provides a lot of options to convert. But when switching to working with the browser and full tools, Google displays an error message.
On the other hand, only Zoho is stable when operating in iOS with the Safari browser, while providing more convenience when users want to switch the working mode from different Mobile devices or browsers.
And so, for the first time in this experiment, Zoho dominated and proved superior to the other two competitors.
6. Price level:
For individual users, or small business models, all three online services meet most of their needs, but there are still some missing functions.
Zoho Docs has 2 options: $ 3 or $ 5 per user account for 1 month. Basically, the service packages are relatively similar, but for $ 5 we will have twice the amount of storage, besides some advanced features such as sharing documents with other users. without asking them to set up or login with Zoho account. Besides, email hosting service with fees of $ 2.5 or $ 3.5 depends on your selected product package.
Besides Google Apps for business - Business for $ 5 per account for 1 month, and $ 50 for 1 year. Office 365 has many different packages depending on the size of the business. The most suitable package for Office 365 when compared to Google Apps and Zoho Docs costs $ 6 per user account for 1 month.
Zoho 's $ 3 package may be the most attractive price for users, but it corresponds to the lack of the most basic functions, such as email. However, in the enterprise, price is not the determinant of all, but the functional system, technical support as well as their requirements. In terms of overall view, Office 365 is slightly better than 2 competitors with more features and better compatibility, so the price of this service is also higher.
And through a number of key points already mentioned, Google Apps is the most suitable choice, the price of $ 50 for each account in a year, users will not need to worry too much. For a fee of $ 15, Office 365 users will receive a license to download the Office 2010 Professional package , and for $ 21 per month, this is a fairly expensive price for such a web-based tooling platform.
And finally, the price of $ 252 for each user in a year, Office 365 will cause many businesses to think with $ 504 in 2 years, while the Office 2010 Professional set costs $ 410 . The costs incurred when businesses switch to using Cloud platform technologies depend on how long they want to use Office 2010 before deciding to upgrade, and how much will be saved. Additional functions of other Desktop applications.
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