23 replies to this topic

[+Shikaka]

Hey All,

Now that Google has took away the free version of its Google Apps for under a certain amount of users, i am thinking of starting to use Office 365 for clients.

I just wondered if anyone has tried both and can give me some feedback on how reliable and easy to use it has been (Office 365 that is)

Google Apps was always my number 1 solutions for small clients with just a few emails accounts, however exchange in the cloud like Office 365 has proper integration into Outlook without the need for third party software to share things like Calendars i believe?

So yea i am just looking for some feedback really

Thank You

[RandyC]

I've been using Office 365 for my company for the past two years almost (since the public beta). All in all I think it's a good product (Exchange and Lync get used alot) and worth the £3.90 per user per month and I haven't experienced any major outages during that time.

I don't use the web versions of Office much when in the office but on the move they have been useful as clients have varying versions of Office some of which haven't been patched with the XML file conversion patch.

[]SK[]

Exchange all the way.

I, like you, would easily recommend Google Apps for small businesses. Now that there are fee's involved though I can only recommend Office 365. Sorry but Outlook when hanging off the back of Exchange is just awesome.

I still use GA for my personal email. It's a great package but if I was forced to pay I would migrate to Office 365. Collaboration is the only thing better in GA IMO.

[Jub Fequois]

Intermedia.net (or .co.uk if in the UK) offer great Exchange 2013 services. I'd take a look at them too!

Also, AtMail Cloud offer their own solution, and it's working really, really well. It's cheaper than many other alternatives.

[+Shikaka]

Hmm i will take a look at intermedia 100%,

I also use Google for my own email, its work "ok" with Outlook 2010 in IMAP, nowhere near as good as exchange!

Office 365 looks like the way to go, the first client ill be setting up with it is a hotel so i just wanted to make sure it is reliable thats all, i have a few domains spare that i can setup with a 365 Trial to test everything

Any tricks or time saving tips you could give me would be great! I know thats cheeky

[Simon-]

I use Google Apps for Business & I have had a look at Office 365. Between the two I find that the Google Apps works better on more devices and mail clients, and Gmail is always getting innovative new features (if you opt in to Rapid Release). Also note that EAS is going to continue to be supported for Business Customers.

[Uplift]

Jub Fequois, on 14 January 2013 - 10:12, said:

Intermedia.net (or .co.uk if in the UK) offer great Exchange 2013 services. I'd take a look at them too!

Also, AtMail Cloud offer their own solution, and it's working really, really well. It's cheaper than many other alternatives.

You got me excited there, this looked like a nice cheap way to manage my personal email and clients but at a minimum of 5 users it's a more expensive when starting out.

I'd need to round up some clients first to reduce the cost for myself.

I only need 1 email for the time being so $10 for 5 users and only using one seems pointless.

But will certainly be keeping an eye on this.

[]SK[]

Simon-, on 14 January 2013 - 10:40, said:

I use Google Apps for Business & I have had a look at Office 365. Between the two I find that the Google Apps works better on more devices and mail clients, and Gmail is always getting innovative new features (if you opt in to Rapid Release). Also note that EAS is going to continue to be supported for Business Customers.

Not sure how you come to that conclusion as majority of mobile devices connecting to either service will be using EAS. The EAS protocol Google uses is older and as such doesn't support as many features.

[BajiRav]

]SK[, on 14 January 2013 - 11:03, said:

Not sure how you come to that conclusion as majority of mobile devices connecting to either service will be using EAS. The EAS protocol Google uses is older and as such doesn't support as many features.

I've seen that guy troll on Microsoft at times....

[Intrinsica]

Having only used Google Apps I can't really compare the two products, but I assisted in migrating all of our users from Outlook to Google Apps a couple of years ago without any problem. I believe the reason for doing that was that they wanted the collaboration option for their documents (more than one person working on the same document at the same time). Of course, if O365 comes with that then my point is moot.

[+Shikaka]

Well i just spoke with a Office 365 Sales Rep and he told me that these Cloud email solutions from Office 365 are not compatible with "Mail" on a MAC. Which i find hard to believe?

I then asked him if there was a way to access an Office 365 mailbox via POP or IMAP instead of Exchange, he went silent and told me to ask the community?

Not a great start if their support is like him

[]SK[]

Google has the answers...

http://blogs.technet...tlook-2003.aspx

I would imagine the Mac users will get a better experience using OWA.

[+sc302]

Shikaka, on 14 January 2013 - 15:13, said:

Well i just spoke with a Office 365 Sales Rep and he told me that these Cloud email solutions from Office 365 are not compatible with "Mail" on a MAC. Which i find hard to believe?

I then asked him if there was a way to access an Office 365 mailbox via POP or IMAP instead of Exchange, he went silent and told me to ask the community?

Not a great start if their support is like him

Sales Reps are idiots.

Yes you can access the office 365 Mailbox by pop or by Imap as well as outlook. For most phones and tablets, they have Activesync integration and that makes life real easy. I would strongly recommend using outlook for proper integration though.

[Uplift]

What a complete ****tard.. i'm using Office 365 right now on Mail.app using Exchange, it also works on POP3 and IMAP.

I'm looking to downsize though it costs almost £5/month i think with tax in the UK.. i only bought it as i could only use Exchange at work but now we can use IMAP i'm free to use whatever service i like.. I quite fancied Outlook but thats no good since it only has POP3 and i want to sync it with my phone.. this AtmailCloud offering looks tempting i've contacted them to see if its possible to buy less than 5 licences.

[Simon-]

]SK[, on 14 January 2013 - 11:03, said:

Not sure how you come to that conclusion as majority of mobile devices connecting to either service will be using EAS. The EAS protocol Google uses is older and as such doesn't support as many features.

I didn't say that most mobile devices will use EAS, I just said that EAS is still an option for Google Apps Business users. I have not heard that Google's EAS has less features than other EAS servers, but you could be right. Do you know which features are missing?

Better on more devices:

Android has native sync, which is obviously going to be better than EAS on Android.

There are a number of third party mail clients specifically designed for Gmail on the Mac such as Sparrow and Mailbox.

EAS can be used with Windows 8 mail.

Currently no Google Apps Sync client for Outlook 2013. Last time (Office 2010) this came out when 2010 hit general availability. Hopefully this comes soon.

I also heard this about EAS vs CardDAV from a Contacts perspective on iOS:

Quote

Purely talking contacts, EAS is limited to ~5 email addressses or phone numbers per contacts, and doesn't support custom labels (eg, home, work, iPhone, car phone, work iPhone, kids phone). CardDAV has no such limits.

CardDAV also supports social profiles (Facebook, Twitter etc links), as well as relationships, so you can actually ask Siri to call your mother, father, sister, spouse etc. Exchange ActiveSync does not support either.

http://whrl.pl/RdraTv