Back in October last year, Google made a significant aouncement to take on Microsoft Office in the enterprise world. If you have a qualifying contract for productivity software (Office), such as an Microsoft enterprise agreement, you can use Google Apps at no charge until your old agreement expires. Also, Google will fund deployment services from a participating partner.
Google yesterday aounced that they are extending this offer till end of 2016. Also, they are now allowing mid-size businesses to take advantage of this offer.
Companies between 250 and 3,000 that currently have an EA with another vendor can qualify for zero-cost Google Apps licenses for the term of their existing EA. And now, companies with 100 users (previously 250) to as many as 3,000 can qualify for a Deployment Voucher. This greatly expands the number of companies that can take advantage of the Deployment Voucher.
For mid-market customers that sign up for this promotion, Google will pay for a Security Workshop, to the value of $750USD, through our trained Partners, to help them maximize the security and data protections Google Apps offers.
Despite these great offers from Google, Microsoft Office 365 is still wiing many new customers and it is dominating the productivity market for large enterprises. Google Apps is more popular among small and mid-size businesses and Office 365 has recently started making inroads into this market.
Have you tried Google Apps and Office 365? Which one do you prefer at work? Let us know in the Idea section below.