Today, Computerworld published a good article by Shane O’Neill titled “Why We Chose Exchange Online, Not Google Apps”
The author of the article, based on customer testimonials, explains why Winston-Salem selected Microsoft hosted Outlook over Google Apps. While I have touched on this point many times over, for every business owner, it always comes down to three key criteria:
How familiar are my employees with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office applications vs. Gmail and Google Apps?
How much money have we already invested in Microsoft licenses, i.e. Microsoft Office, SharePoint, etc?
Extent of required end-user training we will have to provide to ensure that the solution is quickly adopted by all employees
As you can see, the selection process can be fairly simple and at times, majority of decision makers will favor a technology that their users are already familiar with, without looking at feature and functionality, or even price tag.
It is important to remember, that choosing your cloud provider will have long-term effects on your business, and if your competitors selected a more agile, feature-reach collaboration platform, they may beat you at your own game. Hence, the selection process must include a much more detailed review and analysis of all pros and cons prior to making a commitment to a particular technology or vendor.
Several hours ago, Google started sending emails to Google Apps users introducing Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. The email provides an overview of the Cloud Connect concept and includes direct download link for the Cloud Connect plugin.
Below is a brief overview of the Cloud Connect.
The installation took approximately 1.5 minutes, and having launched Microsoft Word we have noticed Google Connect toolbar right under the standard office toolbar in Office 2007.
Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office toolbar
Prior to using the plugin, you will have to authorize Google Cloud Connect by logging in to your Google Apps account and setting up synchronization options that can be changed later. Provided that you have selected automatic document synchronization that would take place every time your Word document is saved (always remember to enable auto-save option in Word so that you don’t loose important documents), Cloud Connect takes care of the rest and instantly provides you with a unique web link for sharing your documents with others. Don’t worry, while your document is saved to Google’s cloud instantly, it is not automatically shared with the world. A “Share” button on the far right, when clicked, will take you to what looks like standard Google Docs Sharing settings. In a matter of seconds you can start sharing a Word document, PowerPoint presentation or Excel spreadsheet with people you select. You can also specify if a person can edit a document, or just view it online.
Google Cloud Connect sharing settings
When synchronized, the file will be stored in Google’ cloud and can be viewed online as if it was a native Google Docs document.
Viewing Google Cloud Connect document online
In my view, this can be a huge win for Google specifically winning customers that hesitate switching from Microsoft Office to Google Apps as many people prefer to use something with familiar interface. It would be interesting to see what happens to Cloud Connect popularity and to overall user loyalty to Google Apps after Microsoft’s launches Office 365 which is currently in Beta. Microsoft Office 365 incorporates online document collaboration features for standard Microsoft Office documents by design and includes feature limited online versions of popular Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Unfortunately, Google Cloud Connect is currently not available for Mac due to the “lack of support for open APIs on Microsoft Office for Mac”. At this time, Google did not disclose any plans to make it available for users of Microsoft Office for Mac in the near future.
On January 14th, Google posted Service Level Agreement (SLA) related data as it applies to Google Apps for both business and individual customers.
In 2010, Gmail was available 99.984% of the time, which translates into approximately 7 minutes of downtime per month, and basically represents accumulation of small delays throughout the year.
Google Apps Downtime 2010
Compatible data for Microsoft BPOS for 2010 shows 113 incidents, 74 unplanned outages and 33 days with planned downtime.
Considering the above data, Google Apps seems more reliable compared to Microsoft BPOS. In several blog posts, Microsoft reiterated that guaranteed uptime is one of the key priorities for BPOS and its future successor – Office365 that is currently in Beta.
The Driz Group Blog 
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