Comments on: Microsoft SaaS vs. Google Apps on College Campuses

By: Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:55:55 +0000

Regicide: I think you’ve just pointed out the difference between a microwave and a full-blown executive chef kitchen. In many cases the microwave — fast, quick, simple — is fine. But I don’t think one solutions (Google Apps) fully replaces the other (MSFT Office).

By: Regicide Smitty

Regicide Smitty — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:41:55 +0000

Um seriously… NO ONE needs a word processor with 10,000 features. At most, all you need is 10.

As for spreadsheets, let’s get serious again. Most college students just need to be able to plot linear or quadratic graphs as well as have linear regression and quadratic regression.

Is Google Apps adequate for this?

YES!

By: Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:36:40 +0000

Parley @4: OpenOffice is a nice option but isn’t quite ready for prime time on Macintoshes (at least, it wasn’t the last time I tested it in the fall of 2007). I’d like to see Sun Microsystems get much more vocal about its strategy for OpenOffice, especially in college settings.

In the meantime, I keep hearing about more Google Apps deployments…

By: parley

parley — Tue, 27 May 2008 23:29:42 +0000

Google Apps only reduce the cost for schools to manage their system but not necessarily provide a feature rich application set to the students. Why would students use half-butted Google Docs / SpreadSheet while they could use Open Office (which is significantly better) for free.

By: Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:15:51 +0000

But the $1 million question: Will Google push all of its SaaS and managed services offerings directly, or will MSPs play a role? So far, it seems to be mostly a direct sales play…

By: smithwill

smithwill — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:03:23 +0000

Google’s play will be much stronger because the licensing burden and patching issues won’t be hanging over their as would be the case with Microsoft. If anything, Google will focus on an affordable subscription model and seek to grown share. Thus far, as with Sketch-up, Google delivers very good product and service without all the inherent Microsoft overhead.

By: Reggie

Reggie — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:51:40 +0000

A lot of universities had open source or unix oriented email systems from Sun. I don’t think Exchange Server is as dominant in higher ed as it is in the business world, so i do believe universities will be inclined to test google apps. and don’t forget that the google brand is very strong with students.