Boston drops Microsoft, switches 20K employees to Google Apps

[dvb2000]

Lets see how long untill they are forced to switch back due to security concerns like all the other government groups who's tried this as well.

Well it'll probably make it easier for the FBI and the CIA to evesdrop on Boston's emails, but of course the real issue is how long before all their emails are published"by accident" on the www and indexed forever by all the various search engines.

[HawkMan]

Since when were user wishes ever considered to much. And I am sure there were more insight in to this that pencil pushers.

With pretty much everyone worried about saving a buck these days, MS needs to offer cheaper solutions or they are going to lose more customers. Especially when there are cheaper alternatives available. And regardless how anyone feels about Google, its competition for MS and its competition that fuels innovation and good products.

user wishes are considered by smart companies who are interested in making money. companies that realize that the cost of the software is just one part of the equation.

a cheaper solution could easily become more expensive because users get annoyed, they take longer to do stuff, things are harder to find and use, they lack the functionality they need and are used to. And then suddenly you are losing money.

i also drop my MS office usages in favor of kingsoft office, that is until MS successfully accquire kingsoft in the future.

Kingsoft is useless. it has extremely limited language support for grammar and spell checking. making it directly useless for me. You have to pay nearly the same you would for Office to get the good version with the good interface.

and that completely ignores the other usability issues I had with it. LibreOfice was a better option, and that's saying something.

Well it'll probably make it easier for the FBI and the CIA to evesdrop on Boston's emails, but of course the real issue is how long before all their emails are published"by accident" on the www and indexed forever by all the various search engines.

It's a bigger problem in non US nations. since google follows US law and/or the law of the country their storage server is in. that means other governments can get secret document from the government organizations who use google docs.

[Noir Angel]

I've not tried Google docs yet as I can get my MS office licenses for nothing but if Microsoft don't start pricing their enterprise products more competitively they will start losing more business. In the current recession everyone is making cutbacks, yet Office stays very expensive (and I'd wager that most businesses don't even use anywhere near the full subset of it's functionality). Not that I personally have any complaints, unlike Windows 8, Office 2013 is a very worthy upgrade to it's predecessor.

[HawkMan]

MS will need to lose a LOT more customers before it's worth it for them to price their products competitively with google. They have a better products that's worth more.

and as it is they have a ridiculous majority of the customers. now if they where to reduce prices to compete with google to potentially get back the handful of switchers. they would lose to much money from the licenses form their wast majority of clients, they would lose, not gain. At this point in time, google doesn't have the quality or quantity for MS to bother competing with them on price.

[Noir Angel]

I'd wager actually that the functionality in Google docs would probably be more than enough for most normal usage, I don't know all that many people that use much of the advanced stuff in Office.

[HawkMan]

I'd wager actually that the functionality in Google docs would probably be more than enough for most normal usage, I don't know all that many people that use much of the advanced stuff in Office.

Functions isn't everything, design and usability is king. and MS is all over Google on usability.

[vanx]

I can see possibly email. You lose some functionality when switching to a browser based option but it works well. However, when working with spreadsheets, presentations and documents in the browser still feels like it's still in the beta stage to me. They just don't feel like they work well to me.

Even email can be a hassle. Can transition from Exchange to GMail ever go smoothly? In a couple of experiences I had, it was a royal pain and it annoyed a lot of people. Rules weren't imported, labels instead of folders, filters aren't intuitive to set up, etc.

I'd wager actually that the functionality in Google docs would probably be more than enough for most normal usage, I don't know all that many people that use much of the advanced stuff in Office.

That is potentially true, but people have familiarity with Office products. They know how things work with them. Switching to Google docs requires people to re-learn things, get used to workflows, etc. Office software is de facto standard for a reason. If one uses Google docs 24/7, that person may struggle when going to a company that uses Office and vice versa. All this cloud software stuff sounds great. But at the end of the day, I am still sitting at my desktop or laptop doing work and using Google docs requires an internet connection. This does not bode very well when one tries to finish off a presentation or proofread a doc on a flight or train.

[Noir Angel]

Functions isn't everything, design and usability is king. and MS is all over Google on usability.

That sounds like a subjective opinion to me.

[HawkMan]

s

That sounds like a subjective opinion to me.

potentially so. but 9 out of 10 users who'd never use a office package before would find it easier to use MS office, and 9 our of 10 pro office users would find MS office faster and more efficient.

and in fact, no, god efficient UI design isn't purely subjective.

only in the sense that coders use a different logic than regular users, which is why apps focused on coders tend to have a different logic to functions and stuff. But we're talkign about an office app aimed at regular users here. and efficient in design is not a subjective thing.

[Noir Angel]

I wouldn't make that argument, from what I have seen in my time volunteering Office is actually too complicated for the average layman, even performing the most basic of tasks seems to confuse people that haven't been trained to use office. And that's how I see it, as long as people are properly trained they should be able to use Google docs or open office just as proficiently as MS Office.

[HawkMan]

so you've never used office or seen office since 2007 then... ? since anyone without experience can figure out 2007 and up from the get go, that's the whole idea, less time spent training, less money spent training. And more importantly when you know how to use it, it's more effective with faster and easier access to the functions you use, and more direct interactive display of what you are doing, basically allowing you to change and check layout and such much faster than the change, undo, change,undo change, undo of previous office and Google docs.

[Noir Angel]

I've used every version of office since 2003. I wasn't talking about myself, I was talking about normal people. We use Office 2010 on the majority of our computers, and normal people do have trouble figuring out how to use it.

[vcfan]

I see lots of MS fanboy getting ****ed because their beloved company is getting hammered down by Google. Competition is overall good for everyone and it keeps bigger companies in balance and provides better service to consumer. I am glad that Google is advancing in these areas and I would prefer Google to invest directly in Office suite which competes with a MS.

hammered down? rollseyes

the cloud office offerings barely make up 5% of office users, and what percentage of that does google have? its insignificant.

[fusi0n]

Actually, I know a lot of medium size companies that did this.. They never looked back.

[HawkMan]

I've used every version of office since 2003. I wasn't talking about myself, I was talking about normal people. We use Office 2010 on the majority of our computers, and normal people do have trouble figuring out how to use it.

Except Normal people have a infinitely easier time learnign new version of office than Libre Office and such. Maybe if you actually read my whole post.

[vanx]

From personal experience, I know 2 companies that switched to Google Mail and Apps. However, both still use the Office suite of products and one makes extensive use of Sharepoint. Office365 does email much better than GMail so outsourcing for worse makes little sense.

[Noir Angel]

Except Normal people have a infinitely easier time learnign new version of office than Libre Office and such. Maybe if you actually read my whole post.

We load libre office onto computers that we refurbish and I haven't had a complaint about it yet.

From personal experience, I know 2 companies that switched to Google Mail and Apps. However, both still use the Office suite of products and one makes extensive use of Sharepoint. Office365 does email much better than GMail so outsourcing for worse makes little sense.

I don't really agree with that. Outlook is a great email client, but I personally find the web based version of outlook to be completely rubbish in comparison to the web version of gmail.

[techbeck]

user wishes are considered by smart companies who are interested in making money. companies that realize that the cost of the software is just one part of the equation.

a cheaper solution could easily become more expensive because users get annoyed, they take longer to do stuff, things are harder to find and use, they lack the functionality they need and are used to. And then suddenly you are losing money.

A smart company would have qualified IT personnel to make these decisions. And then provide them with the training users need to make the transition easier. Users get annoyed upgrading Windows and Office versions (changing from menu based system to a ribbon system) and then need training/documentation to help them transition. Changing to another platform is no different. You will have users get it...and then you will have users that need extra help.

I'd wager actually that the functionality in Google docs would probably be more than enough for most normal usage, I don't know all that many people that use much of the advanced stuff in Office.

I would agree with this. And normal home users are the same way. But depends on the company. Where I work, we have many different divisions and work with companies in different countries. So it makes it easier to be on the same software as much as possible as we have a mixture of advanced and novice users. But smaller companies can benefit from different options.

Functions isn't everything, design and usability is king. and MS is all over Google on usability.

Never have had anyone come to me complaining about having a hard time using alternative programs besides Microsoft. Libre and Google Docs are not hard to figure out.

[vanx]

I don't really agree with that. Outlook is a great email client, but I personally find the web based version of outlook to be completely rubbish in comparison to the web version of gmail.

For some people, it may be down to how much they have used one over another. For example, I have used Outlook and OWA way more than GMail. Gmail is ok for casual personal use and I manage its emails mostly using my phone or tablet. Outlook and OWA are more professional tools. The only downside of the web version that I can think of is it does not let me run rules on demand in the same manner that new filters do.

[Klownicle]

If Microsoft has enough money to throw away at useless commercials and celebrities, little things like this won't make a difference.

If Microsoft has enough money to throw away at useless commercials and celebrities, little things like this won't make a difference.

[PGHammer]

What? MS has made updates available for their products via the internet since like I dunno Windows ME?

The problem is that companies are often quite unwilling to update their software unless they really need to, and often resist forced updating.

More like since (believe it or not) MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, and the original Windows NT.

In addition to the old Microsoft section of CompuServe, there was FTP.MICROSOFT.COM (the progenitor of today's Microsoft Download Center) where you could get updates for all your Microsoft software (operating systems, applications, hardware drivers, etc.) for nothing more than connect-time charges. During that period, (pre-Windows 95 until the moribunding of CompuServe in the late 1990s), I had either indirect Internet access via a local BBS or, starting in 1997, dial-up access via a local ISP - the result was I used FTP.MICROSOFT.COM a lot (basically, for any non-beta software that I needed to update).

And you are absolutely correct on companies hating to upgrade OR update their software except when forced to - all too often, businesses operate their IT departments in the equivalent of plastic bubbles. A good part of that behavior is, in fact, ENCOURAGED by developers that write custom software, as they basically BOHICA a company by charging exorbitant fees to update that software - as if they were old-school IBM. (That was, in fact, THE major difference between Microsoft and IBM's respective enterprise-software businesses - Microsoft didn't believe in BOHICA.)

[srbeen]

Google apps isn't there yet. If google was smart they would work with people doing these 'swtiches' to improve their product.

[Growled Member]

I love Google Apps for my home use, but we are a total Microsoft shop at work. I am an advanced user of Excel. I can do things in Excel I'm not sure you can do in Google Apps, and if you can it can't be done easily. However, I still prefer Google Apps for my home use because that's all I need. It's really all most average users need as well.