Strategy & Best Practices

Office 365 and Google Apps for Work: A Guide for Resellers

By Gretchen Dukowitz / August 30, 2016

As SMB cloud adoption grows, ISVs are rushing to meet the demand for cloud-based business applications. In fact, IDC predicts that this increasing demand will help drive a 10x increase in the number of SaaS solutions over the next few years.

Today, SMBs can choose from hundreds of business SaaS apps across nearly every category, from CRM, to security, to finance and accounting, and more. There has never been more choice, but when it comes to productivity solutions, customers are gravitating to two solutions: Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps for Work.

Just how popular are these products? Office 365 is Microsoft’s fastest growing product ever, while more than 5 million businesses are now using Google Apps for Work. Two strong products from two tech industry leaders; how does an SMB decide which product to use? Which product should service providers and cloud resellers offer? And perhaps most importantly, which will drive more revenue?

The answer is: It depends.

Both Office 365 and Google Apps for Work are powerful solutions, but each offers different features and user experiences that appeal to different users. As Gartner recently reported, “Among public companies using cloud-based email, Microsoft is more popular with larger organizations and has more than an 80% share of companies using cloud email with revenue above $10 billion.”

However, as the analyst firm went onto explain: “Google’s popularity is better among smaller companies, approaching a 50% share of companies with revenue less than $50 million.” Clearly, there are factors that are driving Office 365 and Google Apps for Work adoption with different customer segments.

Radialpoint, a member of the AppDirect family of companies that provides best-in-class sales and technical support services, recently published an informative blog post that explores what these factors are. It breaks down the differences between Office 365 and Google Apps for Work and details which features may appeal to certain types of users. The post also lays out a detailed pricing breakdown. You can click here to read the full post.

As Radialpoint makes clear, it’s not about pitting Microsoft against Google to pick a winner. Instead, when resellers and service providers develop an understanding of these two major players, it enables them to provide custom solutions that fit the needs of each client—and drive more sales.

Gretchen Dukowitz is the Content Marketing Editor at AppDirect.