Google has checkmated Microsoft in the game of cloud storage for business. ‘Google Apps Unlimited’ now offers unlimited Drive storage for only $10 per user. This comes on the heels of Microsoft’s April update, which upgraded Office 365 subscribers from 25GB of OneDrive storage to 1TB per user.
Google’s premium suite offers unlimited storage, as well as native Microsoft Office file handling capabilities, advanced audit reporting, and new security controls for $10 per user, each month. In addition, the technology giant has enabled file uploads of up to 5TB, a severe contrast to Office 365’s maximum file size of 2GB.
‘To put that in perspective, no desktop or laptop on the market today even has a hard drive big enough to capture and store a file that size’ - Director of Product Management, Google Drive, Scott Johnston.
Experts argue this move is pure ‘gimmick’, since three out of four users have less than 15GB of personal data on their PC anyway, let alone a file over 1TB. “For all intents and purposes, 1TB is the same thing as unlimited for almost every user,” says Tony Bradley, Principal analyst at Bradley Strategy Group.
However, Office 365 users are hindered by SharePoint’s synchronisation limitations. OneDrive for Business users unable to sync more than 5,000 items in SharePoint libraries on SharePoint sites, and are limited to only 20,000 items in total.
A member of SharePoint’s team, Mark Kashman said Microsoft is currently working on SharePoint sync limits. However, since Google Apps Unlimited doesn’t present the same problem, it’s a breath of fresh air for companies struggling with more complex migrations.
In addition to unlimited storage, Google has added Quickoffice for Docs, Sheets and Slides. Users can open and edit Microsoft Office documents in their ‘native’ formats, using Google’s Office Compatibility Mode technology. This eliminates the need to convert Word files into Google Docs before editing, and allows users to save changes on the original Word file.
Google has also ramped up security, aiming to placate the ‘cloud-wary’ executives citing security as a barrier to cloud adoption. This comes as no revelation, considering Google is contending with Microsoft, which maintains a steadfast reputation for meeting world-class industry standards for privacy, security and compliance.
Google Apps Unlimited offers more control and visibility
Admins get more control with Google Apps Unlimited. They can track employee activity, including moving, deleting or sharing files within or outside the company. In addition, Google Vault means admins can retain, archive, search and export and organisation’s email for eDiscovery and compliance needs. Other security enhancements include file encryption, ‘API’ for developers and more.
Even before these changes were deployed, an analysis by Gartner, conducted in 2013, found ‘Google’s cloud-based productivity suite is gaining on Microsoft’s market share’.
Google also made claims 67 of the top 100 start-up companies used Google Drive over Microsoft Office, as well as 58 percent of Fortune 500 companies.
The continued competition between these technology giants is good news for organisations everywhere.
“It’s great to have this much competition. Having the Microsoft vs. Google streetfight is yielding a steady stream of product improvements,” says Tom Austin, Vice President at Gartner.
Microsoft’s unveiling of 1TB of OneDrive storage has been truncated by Google Apps Unlimited.
If you're experiencing rapid growth or wanting to reduce storage costs, you will likely benefit from Google’s latest leap in the business application space.
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