Office 365 vs. G-Suite in a Mac or Mac/Windows Office Environment
Posted 04 Jun at 12:31 pm in Business, Productivity
G Suite for Mac $ 9.99 / month Gmail Pro (Multiple Accounts) for Mac $ 5.99 Outlook for Mac $ 4.99 / month. G Suite is now Google Workspace. Everything you need to get anything done, now in one place. With Drive File Stream, you stream your Drive files directly from the cloud to your Mac or PC, freeing up disk space and network bandwidth. Because Drive files are stored in the cloud, any changes you or your collaborators make are automatically. Rolling G Suite out to 300,000 students with Chicago Public Schools. Chicago Public Schools made Chromebooks and G Suite available to 300,000 students and 25,000 teachers — centralizing device management and inspiring new options for classroom instruction.
While they primarily deal with email, Office 365 and G-Suite have become much, much more than just email. In this article, we’re going to be comparing 2 key products within these application suites: Microsoft 365 (which is different than Office 365) and G Suite Business Edition when it comes to using them in a all Mac or Windows/Mac hybrid office environment. These are the two most similar product offerings so it makes sense to make them the basis for our comparison.
There are some key things to consider when we’re talking about each of these:
- Identity Management – The best and easiest way to think about this is the “log in with your Google Account” or the “Log in with your Microsoft 365 Account”. This is essentially identity management. Both Microsoft and Google want to control Identity and Authentication Management (IAM).
- Email Features – You know both of these products well. Google and Microsoft are very competitive in this space. Microsoft is better for dealing with a GUI front end but Gmail does web based like no one else on the planet.
- Software – Google Sheets, Docs, Forms etc. Vs. Word, Excel, Outlook, Flow Microsoft has a full suite of desktop software that Google will probably never be able to compete with and it’s the defacto standard for all document editing
- Collaboration Tools – Skype vs. Hangouts vs. Duo vs. Lync vs. Hangouts vs. Teams vs Slack. And the million in-betweens that connect them.
- Security and Mobile & Desktop Features & Tools – This is how G Suite and Microsoft handle managing mobile phones, laptops and other devices based on Mac, PC, iOS, Android, etc.
- Other things to consider – Advanced Threat Protection, Slack, Meeting Software, Versioning, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams
Licenses We’ll Use
Microsoft recently released a product line called “Microsoft 365” which is an advanced bundle of SKU’s for services that used to cost a fortune. Generally speaking, it includes: Office 365 Email, One Drive for File Storage, Azure Active Directory (IAM), Office 2019, Intune for Managing Phones & Desktops, SharePoint, Advanced Threat Protection, free upgrade to Windows 10 and some kickers. For non profit’s if $7.60/user (up to 300 users). For Businesses it’s $20/mo.
With G Suite Business, you get what you know and love, you get Gmail for business, Google Drive, Google Documents (Docs, Sheets, Slides with Built-In web collaboration), Google Login (IAM), G Suite MDM and Advanced Android Deployment Tools, Sites, Vault Email Retention (Non-Profit Special Pricing). The Non-Profit edition is free but we recommend you add on the Vault service for keeping historical version of email and / or for any Compliance or Discovery searches that result from lawsuits. Vault is the big differentiator, you have to get pricing from google by filling out their form online.
Our General Guidance
When we look to decide what’s going to be the right fit for an organization we generally look at a few things:
- Does everyone in the company use Outlook?
- Does everyone in the company have Windows?
- Is SharePoint and/or Exchange institutionalized?
If the answer to any of these questions is “Yes”, we don’t even really look at G Suite as an option. If we find an organization that makes heavy use of SharePoint, Outlook or Windows 10, the move to another system can be pretty difficult and the labor isn’t worth the effort. It’s easier to fix or improve what they have than it is to switch.
But if this isn’t the case, here’s some key differences…
Identity & Access Management (IAM)
The best way to describe Identity Management is to use the Image below. There are many third-party web systems that tie into both Office 365 as an authentication system and Google as an authentication system. We would argue that while the user experience with Google is better, Outlook has become much improved. Outlook also uses Active Directory as a backend which is a well-known, well-documented system.
The most important thing to know about Identity Management is that each IAM system will allow you to log into other third-party systems. Users will be able to log into ADP, Slack, Zoom.us, etc. using just their Google or Office 365 Login.
With Windows 10, you can use your Office 365 email account to log into your windows 10 computer. With a couple of tools (JAMF and Intune), you can do the same thing with Macs as well. You cannot do this with G Suite as they don’t offer native authentication integration.
You can log into Office 365 on this screen:
You can login into Office 365 on the Mac Screen. G Suite can’t do this.
Advantage: Tie (Better UX for Google, Desktop Support for MSFT)
Email Features
This is going to be a controversial discussion, but we use G Suite internally at Proper Sky and we have and Support Office 365 installations as well. Everyone on the team would probably have a different opinion on this but we’ll summarize the key points as succinctly as we can.
- Google is significantly better at blocking spam, stopping phishing attacks and protecting users out of the box. Like way better. Microsoft has better third party security options. If you want to use Office 365, we’re going to buy a third-party security product. Case in point, a phishing email in Office 365:
We literally have to jump through hoops to get that “this message seems dangerous” link to even show up in a G Suite mailbox. We have seen two wire transfers in just the last couple of weeks come through Office 365 that could have been stopped with some better warnings and wouldn’t even forward to our G Suite account.
- If your users use the web interface, G Suite’s search function is second to none. Most of our clients have large mailboxes and simply typing “from:@domain.org in:all” in the search bar will return every email ever sent to domain.org in every folder. If you are a heavy mailbox searcher and you use the web interface G Suite is SIGNIFICANTLY better. Outlook uses the built in windows indexer and isn’t as good.
- G Suite is way better on Android Phones. Office 365 is about the same on Android and iPhone. We actually prefer the Outlook App for iPhones and Androids rather than the built in calendar and contact syncing. However if everyone is using iPhones, it’s a wash.
- G Suite can be used with Microsoft Outlook, but we have some occasional issues with syncing the clients. It’s not a big deal but about once a year, you’ll have 3 or 4 days where you get an innocuous error message with syncing your contacts or calendar via outlook when you are a native G Suite user. Outlook works pretty much perfectly with Office 365 once it’s setup. Overall though the experience with G-Suite and Outlook is very positive.
- Office 365 is much easier to manage. Many of the quasi-routine tasks that we go through; permissions to mailboxes, turning users on and off, sharing mailboxes, shared calendars, read-only lists, etc. Outlook and Office 365 are much better at. G Suite cannot do much of the advanced stuff Outlook & Office 365 can. If you have a lot of advanced sharing and one-off functions, Office 365 is better.
Advantage: Depends. Google as an End User, Office 365 as an Admin or Heavy Outlook End User
Software
With the Microsoft 365 License, you get all of the heavy hitters: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote & Access as part of the license. All of Google’s solutions require that you use their online versions: Docs, Sheets, Slides, Keep & App Maker. If you want native Word & Excel, we have to put copies for each employee, it’s roughly an additional $5/employee/mo.
One other key point where we’d recommend using Office 365: If you do a LOT of collaborative Word & Excel editing. If you have multiple people sharing documents back and forth for edits, updates, versions and tracking, SharePoint is going to be the solution we recommend just because that’s what it’s designed for.
If you use file editing and versioning lightly, Google Drive recently added native .docx and .xlsx file sharing and editing but it’s just out of beta so we’re not exactly sure how reliable the system is yet. The feature is there and it’s available but if you submit native word docs as part of your daily output, SharePoint and Microsoft Teams are the way to go.
Advantage: Microsoft. Office 365 is still superior to G Suite Online Versions. G Suite’s online versions kick MSFT’s butt though.
Collaboration Tools
One Drive vs. Google Drive File Stream. One of the most important considerations in the Google vs. Microsoft Debate can be broken down in minute detail here, but here’s what we think of the two tools: Both tools are file server replacements and both will serve your requirements well. Google is more polished and definitely plays better with Macs.
One Drive has a much tighter integration with SharePoint, you can quickly sync SharePoint and Team libraries to your local PC in a single click. Both tools keep most of your content on the cloud and “stream it” (play it like a remote screen) while you download the actual file. Both tools allow you to select which files you want to keep on your local computer for sync if you’re flying or traveling. Both have nice iPhone & Android Apps. Google has the concept of “Team Shares” which are shares for folks that are part of a team (think Finance, Operations, Legal, etc.), while Microsoft uses the name “Teams” but it’s implementation is slightly different. And both accounts segment out your personal share vs. your team share pretty well.
Google requires that any file that you share with someone else is either globally public or they have a Google account in order to login. Microsoft will allow you to share files for editing with Non-Microsoft account users which is nice. Microsoft One Drive also has something called “Data Leak Prevention” which prevents users from opening files outside of where they have access. For example if a user tried to copy a file from their work PC to a home PC to edit it, the home PC wouldn’t be able to. Right now the parts are rudimentary but the features are coming along.
For Team collaboration, we’re going to preface this with one Major condition: If you use Slack, you’re going to have a hard time leaving it. We use Slack and LOVE IT. It has transformed the way we communicate with our internal team the way we share files, collect feedback, track web leads, share policy etc. If you have Slack in your organization, you may find that G Suite’s Hangout and Microsoft Teams are not nearly as good of a fit and that the money spent on Slack is worth it. We can set Slack up so that you can use your Google or Office 365 Login rather than having a separate login, which makes provisioning and terminating employees easier. But if you have Slack, you’re driving a Bentley already.
Microsoft recently released a “Slack Killer” called Microsoft Teams. It’s built into all versions of Office 365 (Business) and, if you are coming from nothing, it’s a very well designed and very solid product. Google has a roughly equivalent offering called “Hangouts Chat” that is improving rapidly, but we would argue it’s not as good as Microsoft Teams and both are inferior to Slack. If monthly costs are an issue, either one will serve in a “good enough capacity” and are superior to nothing at all.
The other collaboration tools that we need to consider are Skype (which ties into Slack) and Google Voice / Google Hangouts which is designed for doing screensharing. We would argue that while Skype is a solid product with a strong brand and good technical chops, Microsoft has made organizing web meetings with it very, very difficult. The interface is kludgy and hard to control. Google Hangouts, on the other hand while incredibly simple, most organizations don’t find the feature set rich enough.
Telephony in both the G Suite service and the Office 365 Service are just so-so. They’ll improve in time, but they’re not worth really discussing as is.
And of course, sending calendar invites is one of the places where outlook really, really shines. It’s world class. Google Calendar is great but Outlook is the reigning champ.
Advantage: Google Drive for Files (but close). If you don’t have Slack, Teams for Collaboration, Hangouts for Conferencing. Outlook scheduling is world class.
Security and Mobile & Desktop Features & Tools
Generally speaking, Microsoft is designed for the laptop / desktop world, while Google is built around the concept of mobile first. Microsoft has been working with enterprise endpoints for decades and approaches many of it’s features with an eye towards making that feature manageable centrally. Google is more about controlling access to the information itself and while the difference is subtle it means a lot for end users. Google doesn’t generally build full software applications unless they tie into some sort of cloud offering where Microsoft considers the Operating Systems in most of its designs. It’s just in it’s DNA.
Microsoft 365 comes with some desktop management tools while Google comes with iPhone / Android mobile device management features. From an Administration perspective, if we’re forgoing remote management, Google and Microsoft are functionally equivalent. We can make sure that 2 factor authentication is on, that phones require passwords, that we can wipe them remotely if they’re stolen, we can lock people out of accounts and we can find phones if they’re lost (maybe). There’s some extra features for G Suite users on Android but that’s basically it. Office 365, specifically Intune, allows us to control much more on the windows PC side, but very little on the Mac side.
Advantage: Tie. Both will perform the minimum necessary functions for remote devices. Microsoft wins if it’s completely a windows eco-system.
Summary / Other Things to Consider
Right now, we’re amid an Arm’s race between G Suite and Microsoft. Both systems are excellently engineered and have their own set of strengths and weaknesses. It is important to really think about the long term strategy of the organization because it’s easier to get this right the first time. However, you can always move from one system to the other with some help in the future so this isn’t a permanent decision.
Google Engineers can get a MacBook or a Linux box. They don’t use Windows at all. Because of that, Google spends a lot of development time making their stuff work on Mac’s and Linux. Microsoft has committed to making Office a great product on Mac’s but they don’t own the OS like the do with Windows so it’s going to be as good as it can be with what they have. Macs will always support both but Google will do better testing on Mac’s vs. Windows in our humble opinion.
Google’s User Experience design is way ahead of Microsoft’s. Google really considers how the user uses their product while Microsoft has more of an engineering / developer perspective. Google’s design tends to be intuitive, Microsoft’s tends to include the most functions for business.
We recently had an internal discussion of moving our G Suite setup for Proper Sky and to move to Office 365 but opted not to. For most organizations if, you’re going to be mostly Mac but definitely hybrid, you don’t have SharePoint hanging over your head and ease of use is more important than central administration, we’d recommend you go with G Suite.
G Suite For Mac
Summary: While both systems are great, if you’re Mac first, G Suite will make the most sense and provide the best solution. But they’re so close now, you can’t go wrong.
Life's Good -- LG. LG is a multinational company based from South Korea. It is a consumer Electronics company. LG's production and market share is very large since it has a variety of products. Its products range from LG cellular devices to LG's home appliances and TVs.
Our articles targets LG's cellular devices product. LG has been producing cellular devices since a long time. LG has produced the cellphones which relate to every spectrum of price range as well as functionalities. However, most of the LG phones now being manufactured are based on the popular Android Operating System. Android based phones are complex in nature, and the data being moved in and out of such smart phones are in large quantities.
Sometimes, the amount of data becomes material, either quantitatively, but mostly qualitatively. So what can a person do if that person owns a LG smartphone and wants to secure the data being stored on his/her LG phone?
-> The answer to this question is LG PC suite for Mac/ LG PC suite for Windows software.
What Does a PC Suite do for LG Phones?
PC suite for LG basically requires the phone to be connected with the PC or Mac in which LG PC suite for Windows or LG PC suite for Mac is being installed, respectively. It helps in exploring the phone, backing up the data, move or delete things, contacts, text messages, everything.
Let's get to know about LG PC suite.
Part 1: The Best LG PC Suite for MAC & Windows -- Wondershare TunesGo
This is the best LG PC Suite for Mac and Windows chosen by us. Wondershare TunesGo is free to download (trial version) LG PC suite. A comparison can be easily made between LG's own PC suite, and TunesGo by Wondershare PC suite by looking at the features of both software.
LG PC suite for Mac and Windows -TunesGo by Wondershare can be used to manage and organize the data stored on your LG phone as well as many other functions. Synchronization is possible with advanced compatibility settings. Out of many other options, Wondershare TunesGo has been chosen as the best alternative PC suite for LG phones.
The Best LG PC Suite - One Stop Solution to Manage and Transfer Files on LG Phones
- Backup your music, photos, videos, contacts, SMS etc. to computer and restore them easily.
- Manage, export&import your Contacts and SMS, deduplicate Contacts, reply SMS with computer.
- One-click Root - Root your Android phones/tablets to take full control of your device.
- Phone to Phone Transfer - Transfer music, photos, videos, contacts, SMS between two mobiles (both Android and iPhone are supported).
- App Manager - Install, uninstall, import or backup Apps in batch.
- Gif Maker - Create Gif from photos, motion photos, videos.
- iTunes Manager - Sync iTunes Music to Android or transfer music from Android to iTunes
- Fully compatible with 3000+ Android devices (Android 2.2 - Android 8.0) from Samsung, LG, HTC, Huawei, Motorola, Sony etc.
Interface of the PC suite for LG - Wondershare TunesGo looks like:
Pros:
- Best LG PC suite for Mac and Windows. All-in-one package.
- Compatible with every Android LG Phone.
- Easily connect to any Android LG phone.
- Advanced options such as Rooting, Gif Maker and One Click Backup.
- Nice Interface.
- Mac and Windows - works on both.
Cons:
- Paid license when the free trial period expires. This is a bummer. But look at the bright side - It is so good that money would not matter. The lifetime license can be purchased for $29.95.
Part 2: LG PC Suite for Mac and Windows
Developed & Published by: LG Electronics Inc.
User rate:
LG PC Suite is a software to work as LG PC Suite for Mac, as well as LG PC Suite for Windows. This product was developed by LG itself. It helps the users to synchronize the data being stored on their LG phones, with their own personal Computers or Macs.
Here's a picture showing you the user interface of LG PC suite for Mac and Windows:
>>> YOU CAN DOWNLOAD LG PC SUITE BY CLICKING HERE <<<
G Suite For Macbook
Let's take a look at the MAIN FEATURES of LG PC Suite for Mac and for Windows:
- Upgrade Phone Software: LG PC Suite for Mac and Windows can upgrade the software being installed and run on your LG phone to the latest update available depending upon some factors such as career locking stuff. This is a great feature if you don't receive an OTA update or if you want to download and install the update right away on your LG phone.
- Manage Photos: Managing photos with LG PC suite for Mac and Windows is very easy. You can select the photos, preview them, move photos between PC or Mac and LG Phone. You can also delete and add photos to your LG phone.
- Manage Multimedia: Multimedia management is a built-in plugin for LG phones in this LG PC suite for Mac and Windows. It recognizes all the multimedia content whether in audio, in video or any other format. Then you can move, delete, add and transfer such Multimedia content being stored on your LG phone.
- Sync Contacts: This is a very important feature which can be found in almost every PC Suite for every phone. However, managing your contacts and syncing them with outlook or such other apps. There is an option to make a back up of your contacts stored on LG device. You can preview, delete, add, move, rename and edit the contacts once they are being recognized with this LG PC Suite for Mac and Windows.
- Sync Calendar: LG PC suite for Mac and Windows provides users to even sync the calendar on their cellular LG devices to the calendars of Mac or PC respectively. Now your marked up holidays and other events would also be accessible from your personal PC or Mac.
- Smart Share: Smart Share is a unique feature being introduced in LG PC suite for Mac and Windows by LG. This feature lets the users of LG Smartphones wirelessly share and cast the multimedia being stored on their LG smart phones to a compatible TV or any other screen. Smart Share is also compatible with home internet cloud and the sharing possibilities are awesome.
- Applications: LG PC suite for Mac and Windows lets the users of LG Smartphones download and install applications from application store on their LG phones.
Pros:
G Suite Machine Learning
- The LG PC suite by LG is compatible with both MAC and Windows Operating systems for PC's.
- Authenticity check. Since it's a LG PC suite for Mac and Windows, and the target devices are from the same company.
- Smart Share is a unique and great feature which cannot be usually found in any other PC suites.
- Software upgrading feature is something to look to.
Cons:
- It is great PC suite but a lot of more cool stuff is missing which can be found in other than LG's own PC Suite.
Conclusion
G Suite For Mac
1. If you have a LG phone and you don't know how to do deal with advanced features, then you can opt for LG PC Suite made by LG itself. It will allow you to fully manage your phone upto the extent to which a basic Smart Phone user can go. However, do keep in mind while Updating the software of LG phone through LG PC Suite that it is going to cost you badly if you're a user of LG smart phone which is career locked, in a foreign country.
Gsuite Outlook App
2. If you have ANY of the LG smart phones which are based on Android OS, then go for Wondershare TunesGo for sure! It's simple but it is also the most advanced LG PC suite for Mac and Windows. The options such as One Click Backup, One Click Recovery and such other features are the easiest ones for any basic user as well. And there are other technical and more advanced options such as Rooting. Therefore, it is a complete Package. So, if you're willing to have a complete and all in one LG PC suite for Mac and Windows - Wondershare TunesGo is the best choice for you.