A local law firm needs your advice. It currently has 20 PCs being used by its at

Question

A local law firm needs your advice. It currently has 20 PCs being used by its attorneys and staff, and it is debating whether to use Google Apps for Work or Office 365 as its productivity tools. Write a two-page paper that summarizes your recommendation. What type of IT professional can help make this decision? What are two advantages and two disadvantages of each choice? Which alternative is more suitable for a law firm with 20 PCs? Which alternative is less expensive? Will they need to purchase hardware, why or why not?

Explanation / Answer

Answer)

G Suite (formerly Google Apps for Work) is a brand of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools which are developed and produced by Google for the use in businesses. For communication, the G Suite has mail, Hangouts, Calendar, Google+. For Storage, there is Google Drive. Applications such as Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and Sites for collaboration. There is also an option for an Admin panel and Vault for managing users and the services. Google data centers are continuously working on saving instantly every data and also synchronizing the same to other data centers for backup purposes. G Suite is not free and has various plans to choose from for small, medium and large businesses and is also Ad-Free. Suite administrators can also choose to fine-tune security and privacy settings.

Office 365 is also another line of cloud-based services offered by Microsoft. The Office 365 software suite contains cloud-based software as a service product for the business environments, Exchange Server, Skype for Business Server, and SharePoint. Office 365 is an always-up-to-date cloud service where Exchange Server is used for e-mail, SharePoint for social networking, collaboration, Lync for communication.

Both the Google Apps for Work and Office 365 provides user-friendly tools for Content management, Document editing, Document sharing, Document storage, and sync, Tasks, Real-time messaging, Screen sharing, Video and voice calls, Groups and communities, support on Android and iOS devices, and also much more.

An IT professional who has the knowledge of cloud-based systems will be able to make this decision.

G Suite :

Advantages:

G Suite is better for small business owners and is easier to use

Pricing is attractive

Simpler admin control panel

Disadvantages:

Google Docs and other apps have a minimalistic approach towards work processing whereas MS work enables heavy-duty document creation

Doesn't offer a familiar interface for Windows users

Office 365:

Advantages:

Suits enterprise-level businesses where Windows OS are already running

Many people are used to Outlook and thus Office 365 is the choice for many

Disadvantages:

Bad real-time document editing and sharing capacities

Previous edits information is not stored and is permanently lost when a change is made

The alternative which is more suitable for a law firm with 20 PCs is G Suite as it is much easier to use on the web and mobile apps and we already use many Google apps on the cloud such as Mail, Calendar, Photos, Google Docs. Thus it will be user-friendly and also users will be accustomed to the Suite. Also, the pricing is aggressive and owners can buy more storage even if they are on a basic plan, and also unlimited storage with business and enterprise plans.

Purchasing hardware is not necessary using wither Google Apps for Work or Office 365 as they are cloud-based productivity tools. Thus the company's own hardware and computers will work fine.

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