As more people turn to the cloud, the competition among cloud service providers has heightened. In particular, Microsoft and Google have made their way to the top of the pack, although there is still a big difference between these two providers.
In May, research firm Gartner Inc. reported that one-third to one-half of all businesses moving to the cloud for the first time are deciding to go Google. And this report came after a 2009 prediction by the same firm that said Microsoft would be outselling Google 4-to-1 by 2012, which turned out to be wrong. In light of these reports and other circumstances, Microsoft has taken great strides to contend with Google in the cloud.
Hoping to better attract customers and decrease the differences between Office 365, Microsoft’s hybrid cloud solution, and Google Apps, Google’s cloud service, Microsoft not only cut its prices by 20% this spring, but also added a new cloud platform.
Microsoft has a number of platforms available to businesses depending on the size of the business and the basic services for which it is looking. After its price cut, the least expensive version of Office 365 costs $48/user/year. This platform does not include the entire apps suite (so users must purchase add-ons to run the full suite as intended) and is available only to businesses with fewer than 50 people. In contrast, Google Apps for Business, the most costly version of Google Apps, costs $50/user/year. → Read More
