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Gary Edwards

Why companies are switching from Google Apps to Office 365 | CIO - 0 views

www.cio.com/...google-apps-to-office-365.html

Office-365 gDocs

shared by Gary Edwards on 14 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Microsoft’s increasingly strong Office 365 performance is coming partly at the expense of Google Apps.
  • Microsoft’s increasingly strong Office 365 performance is coming partly at the expense of Google Apps.
  • Microsoft’s increasingly strong Office 365 performance is coming partly at the expense of Google Apps.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • Microsoft’s increasingly strong Office 365 performance is coming partly at the expense of Google Apps.
  • It’s not just Microsoft saying that Office 365 is growing (COO Kevin Turner claims that four out of five Fortune 500 companies use the service). Last year, cloud security company Bitglass said traffic analysis gave Google twice the market share of Office 365 among its customers, with 16.3 percent of the market; that went up to 22.8 percent this year as more companies switched to cloud services. However, over the same year, Office 365 grew far faster, from 7.7 percent to 25.2 percent. Google has a slight advantage with small businesses (22.8 percent to Microsoft’s 21.4 percent) but in large, regulated businesses (over 1,000 employees), Microsoft’s 30 percent share is twice that of Google and growing fast.
  • It’s not just Microsoft saying that Office 365 is growing (COO Kevin Turner claims that four out of five Fortune 500 companies use the service). Last year, cloud security company Bitglass said traffic analysis gave Google twice the market share of Office 365 among its customers, with 16.3 percent of the market; that went up to 22.8 percent this year as more companies switched to cloud services. However, over the same year, Office 365 grew far faster, from 7.7 percent to 25.2 percent. Google has a slight advantage with small businesses (22.8 percent to Microsoft’s 21.4 percent) but in large, regulated businesses (over 1,000 employees), Microsoft’s 30 percent share is twice that of Google and growing fast.
  • It’s not just Microsoft saying that Office 365 is growing (COO Kevin Turner claims that four out of five Fortune 500 companies use the service). Last year, cloud security company Bitglass said traffic analysis gave Google twice the market share of Office 365 among its customers, with 16.3 percent of the market; that went up to 22.8 percent this year as more companies switched to cloud services. However, over the same year, Office 365 grew far faster, from 7.7 percent to 25.2 percent. Google has a slight advantage with small businesses (22.8 percent to Microsoft’s 21.4 percent) but in large, regulated businesses (over 1,000 employees), Microsoft’s 30 percent share is twice that of Google and growing fast.
  • Microsoft’s increasingly strong Office 365 performance is coming partly at the expense of Google Apps.
  • Microsoft’s increasingly strong Office 365 performance is coming partly at the expense of Google Apps. Motorola’s recent decision to move from an elderly version of Office to Google’s cloud service bucks the more common trend of companies who have been using Google Apps switching to Office 365.
  • 87.3 percent are using Office 365 services, with each organization uploading an average 1.37 terabytes of data to the service each month.
  • That fits what identity management company Okta is seeing. Office 365 is the most commonly deployed application among its customers (beating even Salesforce) and adoption is growing faster than any other cloud applications. It’s also the cloud service customers use the most, probably because that usage includes all the email users send and receive.
  • The only industry segments where Google Apps has more share than Office 365 are in technology; media, Internet and software companies. The smaller the company, the more share Google Apps has among Okta’s customers; but even in the smallest companies Office 365 is still in the lead.
  • “There are different dynamics that matter based on the company size,” McKinnon points out. “Large companies need manageability, security, reliability. You wouldn't see this acceleration of Office 365 in large companies without Microsoft doing a lot of work [in those areas].”
  • The majority of new Office 365 customers are moving from on-premises, but even companies that have already adopted Google Apps for Business are switching to Office.
  • Microsoft claimed they won back 440 customers in 2013, including big names like Burger King and Campbell’s, and the trend is continuing. Some of that may be the halo effect of the Office 365 growth making companies that picked Google Apps question whether they made the right decision. But often, it’s because of dissatisfaction with Google Apps itself.
  • The simplicity of Gmail and Google Docs clearly appeals to some users, but as one of the most widely used applications in the world, the Office software is familiar to many. “When you put these products into companies, the user interface really matters,” McKinnon says. “For email, the user interface really matters.
  • Google Apps is dramatically different from Office and that’s pretty jarring for people who’ve been using Outlook for a long time. It's like it beamed in from outer space; you have to use a browser, the way it does conversations and threading with labels versus folders, it's pretty jarring.”
  • Even if you like the Google backend better, you have thousands of users saying ‘what happened to my folders?’”
  • And it’s hard to use Outlook with Google, many customers report. “Some companies, they go to Google and they think they are going to make it work with Outlook; what they find out when they start using the calendar is that it just doesn’t work as well with the Google Apps backend as it does when you’re using Office 365. The user interface is so important that it pulls them back in.
  • If you’re pushing somebody who's used to an Office environment into a Google cloud, they're going to feel this vacuum because they no longer have the programs they're familiar with. It represents a huge investment in time that people aren't going to be receptive to. And you have Microsoft saying ‘for just $3 a month more you could have all these great programs you're used to. Now they’ve got the pricing so you get more than you get on Google, what Microsoft is offering is fantastic, and for $3 more it’s a premium worth paying. Microsoft is still the king of hill for a reason.”
  • “Quite frankly, Google is completely outclassed by Office 365 in this arena and despite the price difference corporations who made the switch to Google Apps to save money usually end up coming back within a year.
  • The primary driver of this appears to be Outlook integration over everything else, followed by the inability to do some advanced things that Microsoft Office excels at.”
  • For larger companies, this goes beyond the familiarity of Outlook into advanced features. “You can integrate Skype into Outlook, you can integrate OneDrive for Business into Outlook.
  • It becomes essentially like a command center, and there is nothing Google gives you that does that.
  • “The reason people have been moving to Google is cost,”
  • But a lot of people don’t find the usability and collaboration nearly as effective as Office 365.”
  • It’s not just Microsoft saying that Office 365 is growing (COO Kevin Turner claims that four out of five Fortune 500 companies use the service). Last year, cloud security company Bitglass said traffic analysis gave Google twice the market share of Office 365 among its customers, with 16.3 percent of the market; that went up to 22.8 percent this year as more companies switched to cloud services. However, over the same year, Office 365 grew far faster, from 7.7 percent to 25.2 percent. Google has a slight advantage with small businesses (22.8 percent to Microsoft’s 21.4 percent) but in large, regulated businesses (over 1,000 employees), Microsoft’s 30 percent share is twice that of Google and growing fast.Office 365 is even more popular with the 21 million customers of Skyhigh Network’s cloud security services, where 87.3 percent are using Office 365 services, with each organization uploading an average 1.37 terabytes of data to the service each month.
  • Gary Edwards on 14 Oct 15
     
    "The combination of familiar software and enterprise-class support is bringing early adopters disappointed by Google's lack of progress back to Microsoft."
Gary Edwards

How ProsperWorks, a CRM App, is Helping Google Best Microsoft 365 - 0 views

www.cmswire.com/...-best-microsoft-365-028695.php

ProsperWorks Google-Apps Google-4-Work Productivity Cloud-Productivity-Platform

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • "We integrate directly into the tools that people use to communicate with their customers," CEO and founder John Lee told CMSWire. There are numerous advantages to this approach: no training, the elimination of duplicate data entering and fresh data that is more accurate. The app provides an extension that sits within Gmail, he explained. Then, when a potential lead contacts the sales rep, he or she can search for the prospect's name throughout the organization. "If anyone else was contacted by 'John Smith' at the organization, the rep is able to see that correspondence. She doesn’t have to hunt for information." That feature alone, Lee said, saves a huge amount of time usually spent doing preliminary customer research.
  • Familiar Interface A feature called Chrome extension for Gmail illustrates ProsperWorks larger MO or approach to the CRM space. It was specifically created to help employees work smarter and faster by automating mundane tasks, intelligently organizing customer data and prompting sales actions all within Google's familiar interface, Lee said.
  • Google has been incrementally making its workplace products more and more functional — all, it seems, with one goal in mind. It would like to eat Microsoft Office 365's lunch. When it first launched Google Apps (now called Google for Work), the best feature was the cost. The products were free to use, although there was little in the way of service or advanced business functionality. But that's been changing. More companies are piggybacking on Google for Work's foundation to launch their own products and, as these products mature, continue to invest and expand them. One of the latest examples is ProsperWorks, the developer of Simple CRM for Google Apps. 
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Apr 15
     
    "Google has been incrementally making its workplace products more and more functional - all, it seems, with one goal in mind. It would like to eat Microsoft Office 365's lunch. When it first launched Google Apps (now called Google for Work), the best feature was the cost. The products were free to use, although there was little in the way of service or advanced business functionality. But that's been changing. More companies are piggybacking on Google for Work's foundation to launch their own products and, as these products mature, continue to invest and expand them. One of the latest examples is ProsperWorks, the developer of Simple CRM for Google Apps.   "
Gary Edwards

Workplace Productivity Battle Being Won By Microsoft - ARC - ARC - 0 views

arc.applause.com/...doption-increases-in-workplace

Productivity workplace microsoft

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Google Apps is still favored by small companies—deemed to be those with less than 500 employees—with 22.8% of respondents using the tools available, as compared to the 21.4% who have installed Office 365. Once you get past that employee level, however, Microsoft is dominating the space.
  • Office 365 is used by 30% of enterprise-level companies as part of their working practices, a 500% increase from 2014. Google Apps only accounts for 15% of the market, although it is worth noting that both cloud apps have grown from a 5% share only 12 months ago. Private companies tend to go down the Google route, 24% compared to Microsoft’s 21%, but 34% of publicly-traded organizations go for Microsoft over the 22% that use Google.
  • Cloud adoption is at an all-time high and Microsoft is winning over Google. The surprise is that large corporations, even in heavily regulated industries, are gaining confidence in using cloud apps. The increased focus on security, including the emergence of third-party security services from cloud access security brokers , are filling critical gaps, paving the way for broader adoption of cloud apps in the enterprise.
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Apr 16
     
    "Microsoft's Office 365 is winning the hearts and minds of the workplace, overtaking Google Apps as the preferred productivity tool by an increasing number of business enterprises, a recent report says. According to the second annual Cloud Adoption Report conducted by cloud access security broker Bitglass-subtitled Episode II: Attack of the Clouds and bizarrely using Star Wars as a recurring theme-Office 365 has trebled its user adoption rate in the space of a year from 7.7% in 2014 to 25.2%. Over 34% of organizations with between 500 and 1,000 employees use the Microsoft tool, as opposed to 21.9% who work with Google Apps For Work, an indicator that the authors of the report say confirms that cloud applications are now a significant player. Following a survey of almost 120,000 global companies-both small and enterprise level-the report said that there had been a rise of 20% from last year in the number of businesses that employed a cloud application as their prime productivity tool. In 2014, 28% of respondents used the cloud with that figure increasing to 48% 12 months later. Granted, the sample size had also risen from 80,000 in the first survey, but the results bear out a perception that cloud-based solutions will become the norm."
Gary Edwards

What Salesforce's acquisition of Quip means for enterprise software startups | TechCrunch - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...r-enterprise-software-startups

Productivity Enterprise-Productivity SaaS Quip Office-365

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • So which startups are gunning to take Quip’s place? The answer is surprising: none. There are hundreds of task/project management apps and dozens of communication platforms, yet full productivity suites are few and far between.
  • Sure, there are solutions like OnlyOffice, Zoho Docs and Polaris Office, but these can hardly be considered startups. That last part is important because startups, with their fresh outlook and high risk tolerance, are the true drivers of innovation.
  • Meanwhile, enterprise giants will continue snapping up these enterprise software upstarts to bolster and innovate higher-performance offerings in an attempt to provide customers with a seamless, uninterrupted workflow.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Enterprise software spending is on an upward trend, and is expected to reach $326 billion this year; meanwhile, startups and investors have taken notice. There are currently 1,425 active startups in the space — as listed by CrunchBase — and there’s been an influx of venture funding. According to PitchBook, venture funding of enterprise productivity startups has more than doubled, from $4.75 billion in 2012 to $11.46 billion last year. This year, these software startups have already raised $6.26 billion to date, and the median deal size is up 25 percent compared to 2015, reflecting current market demand and investor appetite. With investors hot on enterprise startups, the market will become more fragmented and saturated than ever before. End users are already inundated with dozens, if not hundreds, of similar software solutions, each which focus on filling one specific business need as effectively and efficiently as possible.
  • In an environment where the biggest technology leaders are looking to startups for new innovation and transformation, there will likely be a coming spike in M&A activity. A historical analysis of CrunchBase data reveals an ongoing trend: enterprise software startups are seven times more likely to get acquired than they are to shut down, while only 4 percent make it to an IPO.
  • Email, communication and collaboration Email clients and collaborative communication platforms are at the epicenter of modern workflows. For a software giant like Salesforce, whose core product (CRM) relies so heavily on email communications, startups in this segment are particularly attractive targets for an acquisition.
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Aug 16
     
    "A new player has entered the enterprise productivity race. For decades, Microsoft reigned as the market leader in enterprise productivity - until Google pushed into the space with Google Apps. Now, with the acquisition of Quip, Salesforce is joining Microsoft and Google in the race. The implications, however, extend far beyond productivity and CRM. Recent developments in enterprise software - including Oracle's acquisition of NetSuite, Microsoft's purchase of LinkedIn and Salesforce's acquisition of Demandware and Quip - point to a shift in the market. Enterprise software (not just productivity apps) can no longer be siloed applications bolted together with varying degrees of integration. Today's tools are expected to be cross-functional, with native integration, real-time collaboration and smart communication at their very core. Enterprise software giants across different verticals are moving in the direction of end-to-end solutions in an attempt to own more of the workflow - Salesforce's acquisition of Quip will only intensify the competition. For enterprise software startups, it's indicative of more mergers and acquisitions to come."
Gary Edwards

Windows Mobile autopsy holds warning for Windows 10 Mobile - MSPoweruser - 0 views

mspoweruser.com/olds-warning-windows-10-mobile

mobility Microsoft Cloud-Productivity-Platform

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • While it seemed the game was Microsoft’s to lose, the rise of RIM’s Blackberry caught Microsoft off-guard. Microsoft became confused by competing demands to challenge Blackberry on one end, Palm on the other and Symbian on the 3rd, and Microsoft’s traditional OEM partners were not playing ball, forcing Microsoft to partner with then ODM HTC.
  • Hernandez boils the issues to 4 points, the biggest being constant changes of direction:
  • Enterprise, consumer, enterprise, consumer: The single biggest driver to the failure of Windows Mobile to take off, was its key asset: Microsoft.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Consumers drove the purchase decision: The Windows logo sold PCs. Ergo the windows logo (and all the familiarity that it implied) must also be able to sell phones… but it turns out that consumers didn’t yet care what OS the phone was running
  • As the iPhone and Android devices would prove soon-enough, consumers were willing to accept two handed input if it provided for richer features and bigger screens. Microsoft, given RIM-compete as an edict, focused on keyboards over touchscreen.
  • The “web” was not the “web”: The final nails in the WinMo coffin came in 2007 and 2008 when Apple launched the iPhone and Google launched Android. And it was not about the design of the iPhone or the amazing hinge Andy Rubin built for the Android G1, but more philosophically about what type of web consumers wanted on their mobile device.
  • Microsoft, RIM and Nokia had all built ways to compress and reformat the web into smaller screens. These phone and OS makers seemed to believe they had the right to determine what the web should look like on a mobile device. Android’s vision had always been to have a full rich-HTML web experience on a mobile device (very googley) and both the iPhone and Android platforms launched with webkit browsers and full HTML support. And consumers voted with their thumbs…They wanted the “web” to be the web.
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Sep 16
     
    "Today's Windows Mobile is Microsoft second try at an OS with that name. Despite having an early first mover advantage with Windows Mobile in the early 2000's Microsoft's lead folded like a bad hand of cards when the iPhone and Android arrived on the scene in the second half of the decade. We have not heard much about the reasons for this failure from inside the company, until a few weeks ago, when Christian Hernandez, who worked as a developer in the division, spoke out about his experience of this period in a Medium post. He revealed that Microsoft did anticipate the upcoming evolution of mobile phones into internet-connected computing devices and that initially things were looking good, due to Microsoft having the following advantages: A solid and stable embedded OS code base with WinCE and a growing PDA platform in PocketPC which integrated familiar apps and user experience to the desktop A relationship with chip manufacturers and OEMs which should allow it to copy the model of the Wintel era onto smartphones where Microsoft provided the OS, reference designs and marketing dollars and OEMs built the hardware and took it to market A well managed and broad set of application developers who lived and died by Microsoft and would surely support its new shift towards a mobile platform. This also included Microsoft's own apps like Outlook, Word, Excel, MSN Messenger, Internet Explorer and XBox assets. A lot of money in the bank to buy customers and market share"
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