6 ms·

Setting aside the accuracy of the data collection here, is it any surprise that companies prefer an enterprise focused product backed by support contracts, SEs,

Setting aside the accuracy of the data collection here, is it any surprise that companies prefer an enterprise focused product backed by support contracts, SEs, and actual desktop/mobile apps instead of web interfaces? Oh, and one cannot overlook the power of Excel lock-in here - the number of business lines run on excel macros in this country is staggering...

TAForObvReasons 10y ago
Office Professional 2016 is $400. The closest equivalent is Office 365 ProPlus (the other enterprise plans add lots of extra stuff not included in the standalone) which is $12/mo. For an upgrade cycle shorter than 3 years, 365 is cheaper. Even for a longer cycle, the standalone is a significant outlay compared to the monthly cost. So you are comparing a no-risk (since you can always fall back to the native apps) negligible cost solution to the google solution
gdulli 10y ago
Yeah, personally I find desktop apps to be much more usable than shoehorning complex functionality into a browser tab, which is always awkward. My current company was on Google apps for about 2 years and then switched to Office for the last 2 years. I can't say MS is better at everything, but overall I definitely prefer it. I will say the "cloud" evolution of Microsoft Office is annoying. Every time I start a new document it wants to default to saving it to OneDrive and pops up a login window. I just want to work on local files, dammit.
- knz 10y ago
  > I can't say MS is better at everything, but overall I definitely prefer it. My employer is trying to roll out O365 to the enterprise. Some of us have been using Google without official IT blessing (due to needing to get shit done in the absence of an official solution) for years. The biggest pain point so far as been moving from Hangouts to Skype for chat. The UI on Skype is awful - multiple pop up's instead of one page (https://hangouts.google.com/ https://hangouts.google.com/), a native client that wants to update way too often vs a website, and for some reason every new conversation with someone starts a new window even if the person already has one open. It's a joke.
  - raesene9 10y ago
    you could always use Microsoft Teams for chat now... (https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/group-chat...)
    - knz 10y ago
      That actually looks quite good! Thanks for the recommendation.
      - jyrkesh 10y ago
        Teams even works as a fully-functional (i.e. chat, voice, video, groups) replacement client for Skype for Business. In my opinion, it works much better as a SFB client; hoping it eventually just takes over SFB.
    - hashhar 10y ago
      One of my uncle's companies moved to Teams recently from Zoom (and Hangouts before that) and I once heard quite a lot of praise from him. Can it be used for personal use? Like in peer to peer?
      - jermaustin1 10y ago
        The company I work for just got on teams, and it integrates with our organization at the Active Directory level. We can do personal chats, meetings and messages, but only to others INSIDE our organization. It isn't a deal breaker, but firing up a screenshare/meeting to a vendor is impossible through it.
        hashhar 10y ago
        Thanks for the info. I have yet to get into a job (will be starting this summer) so I didn't know much about this stuff but am excited.
  - gdulli 10y ago
- CPAhem 10y ago
  > I can't say MS is better at everything MS is way better at support, which is a crucial factor in business. Our small company we have found that G Suite had almost non-existent support from Google. Finding a human at Google to talk to, or even reply to a forum post is very difficult.
  - ohstopitu 10y ago
    if you are paying for google apps, it's insanely easy to talk to Google Support[0]. I've contacted Google Support for a lot of issues (some insanely trivial, and some pretty complicated - both via phone and chat and they have yet to disappoint me). MS has always been in the enterprise world and they've honed their skills on it. But imo, G Suite is not too far behind when it comes to support - but it is lacking in other areas - like not having native apps. [0] https://support.google.com/a/?hl=en#topic=29157&contact=1 https://support.google.com/a/?hl=en#topic=29157&contact=1
- lwkl 10y ago
  I think there is a setting where you can change the default save location to local. I don't know if it disables the popup though.
joezydeco 10y ago
Active Directory lock-in is huge as well.

TAForObvReasons 10y ago

Office Professional 2016 is $400. The closest equivalent is Office 365 ProPlus (the other enterprise plans add lots of extra stuff not included in the standalone) which is $12/mo. For an upgrade cycle shorter than 3 years, 365 is cheaper. Even for a longer cycle, the standalone is a significant outlay compared to the monthly cost. So you are comparing a no-risk (since you can always fall back to the native apps) negligible cost solution to the google solution

gdulli 10y ago

Yeah, personally I find desktop apps to be much more usable than shoehorning complex functionality into a browser tab, which is always awkward. My current company was on Google apps for about 2 years and then switched to Office for the last 2 years. I can't say MS is better at everything, but overall I definitely prefer it. I will say the "cloud" evolution of Microsoft Office is annoying. Every time I start a new document it wants to default to saving it to OneDrive and pops up a login window. I just want to work on local files, dammit.

knz 10y ago
> I can't say MS is better at everything, but overall I definitely prefer it. My employer is trying to roll out O365 to the enterprise. Some of us have been using Google without official IT blessing (due to needing to get shit done in the absence of an official solution) for years. The biggest pain point so far as been moving from Hangouts to Skype for chat. The UI on Skype is awful - multiple pop up's instead of one page (https://hangouts.google.com/ https://hangouts.google.com/), a native client that wants to update way too often vs a website, and for some reason every new conversation with someone starts a new window even if the person already has one open. It's a joke.
- raesene9 10y ago
  you could always use Microsoft Teams for chat now... (https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/group-chat...)
  - knz 10y ago
    That actually looks quite good! Thanks for the recommendation.
    - jyrkesh 10y ago
      Teams even works as a fully-functional (i.e. chat, voice, video, groups) replacement client for Skype for Business. In my opinion, it works much better as a SFB client; hoping it eventually just takes over SFB.
  - hashhar 10y ago
    One of my uncle's companies moved to Teams recently from Zoom (and Hangouts before that) and I once heard quite a lot of praise from him. Can it be used for personal use? Like in peer to peer?
    - jermaustin1 10y ago
      The company I work for just got on teams, and it integrates with our organization at the Active Directory level. We can do personal chats, meetings and messages, but only to others INSIDE our organization. It isn't a deal breaker, but firing up a screenshare/meeting to a vendor is impossible through it.
      - hashhar 10y ago
        Thanks for the info. I have yet to get into a job (will be starting this summer) so I didn't know much about this stuff but am excited.
- gdulli 10y ago
CPAhem 10y ago
> I can't say MS is better at everything MS is way better at support, which is a crucial factor in business. Our small company we have found that G Suite had almost non-existent support from Google. Finding a human at Google to talk to, or even reply to a forum post is very difficult.
- ohstopitu 10y ago
  if you are paying for google apps, it's insanely easy to talk to Google Support[0]. I've contacted Google Support for a lot of issues (some insanely trivial, and some pretty complicated - both via phone and chat and they have yet to disappoint me). MS has always been in the enterprise world and they've honed their skills on it. But imo, G Suite is not too far behind when it comes to support - but it is lacking in other areas - like not having native apps. [0] https://support.google.com/a/?hl=en#topic=29157&contact=1 https://support.google.com/a/?hl=en#topic=29157&contact=1
lwkl 10y ago
I think there is a setting where you can change the default save location to local. I don't know if it disables the popup though.

joezydeco 10y ago

Active Directory lock-in is huge as well.