Productivity is king, and the reigning king of productiveness suites has been Microsoft Office for so long as most of us can keep in mind. But a quiet coup has been afoot for no less than the final decade, and savvy customers and companies have been regularly switching from Microsoft’s suite to Google Workspace apps.

For my half, I’ve been working primarily in Google apps since 2009, throughout half a dozen totally different corporations, and I’ve reached the purpose the place I simply roll my eyes when somebody emails me a .docx or .xlsx attachment. Is it time so that you can make the swap? Here are 5 causes it is best to lower MS Office free, and two huge causes it’s price holding onto Microsoft’s suite. 

1. Google Workspace is usually free, and for companies it’s fairly low cost.

Robert Strohmeyer / PCWorld

Microsoft has been charging a whole lot of {dollars} for its Office suite for so long as Office has been a factor. Today, Office 365 is available in a wide range of barely totally different and apparently arbitrary variations consisting of various mixtures of its varied functions at costs starting from $70 a yr for Personal to $264 a yr for Business Premium. Yes, enterprise charges are comparable, $72 and $264 yearly, with bigger enterprises getting diminished charges off the large bundle. But for private use, Google apps are flat-out free. Not a penny. Just create an account and do your factor. Even my children figured this out on their very own, as did all their buddies.

2. Google presents simpler collaboration.

From its inception, Google’s app suite was constructed for collaboration. Being internet-first, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and so forth., have been conceived at a time when sharing and collaborating on paperwork had turn into the norm for a brand new era of employees, and Microsoft was years behind in that space. While Office 265 has stepped issues up, Microsoft’s collaboration expertise stays kludgy and complicated, counting on Sharepoint and OneDrive again ends. But Google apps make it simpler to see who’s doing what, discover and revert modifications, and get all of it accomplished in actual time with out ready for various customers to save lots of their modifications.

Jon Phillips/Foundry

3. Seamless entry from wherever

Both Office365 and Google Workspace reside on-line and are accessible from any gadget, however Google’s system was designed for straightforward entry and sharability first, the place Microsoft Office has a business-grade safety bias that leads to loads of annoying hurdles to quick access and sharing. Whether you’re on a browser or utilizing Google’s native apps on a cellular gadget, attending to Google Drive is at all times simpler than hassling with Microsoft OneDrive. Chances are that anybody you wish to share one thing with has a Gmail account, and that’s all it takes to entry Google Drive.

Robert Strohmeyer / PCWorld

3. Google apps are easier

Simplicity could be a double-edged sword, however for the common consumer, Google Docs and Sheets are simply simpler to work with than Microsoft Office. Because Google Drive is constructed into the suite, you don’t have to fret a lot about the place to place stuff. You can simply create a brand new doc and begin typing. The primary formatting instruments are proper there, and whereas it’s potential to entry superior options, most individuals don’t actually need to. Google has accomplished an excellent job of curating a straightforward interface and transferring the complicated stuff out of the consumer’s method. 

4. Google regularly provides intensive integrations

When you purchase a given model of Office365 (the essential private version offers you six apps plus Defender and OneDrive), you get a hard and fast assortment of apps. By distinction, Google Workspace is at all times increasing. Pop open the Google Apps menu within the top-right nook of Google apps and also you get a listing of greater than 20 apps, starting from Docs and Sheets to Keep, Forms, and Voice, and even Youtube. Google’s ecosystem of apps all work with Google Workspace in a technique or one other, making it straightforward to share your paperwork and content material between them. 

5. You most likely have already got Google Apps

Unless you’re a type of individuals who by no means signed up for a Gmail account, you most likely have already got Google Workspace and also you’re most likely already utilizing it. For free. There’s nothing extra to do or purchase. Just embrace it.

Why you would possibly wish to hold Microsoft Office

Google’s apps aren’t good, they usually’re not at all times essentially the most strong choices. There are two huge areas the place Microsoft’s productiveness promise wins handily: Presentations and super-advanced spreadsheets.

Advanced knowledge wranglers choose Excel

While Google Sheets is straightforward and straightforward to make use of and collaborate in, it doesn’t maintain a candle to the superior capabilities of Excel. The common consumer could by no means create a pivot desk or do the form of subtle evaluation that requires Excel, however should you do want these issues, the comparability between these two instruments isn’t even shut. 

Robert Strohmeyer / PCWorld

Power presenters choose PowerLevel

I’ve accomplished sufficient critical presentation-building in my profession to understand the sophistication of PowerLevel. It has a large gallery of visible types and results, and its method to creating layered, data-driven visuals is vastly superior to Google Slides. If you’ve turn into an influence consumer of PowerLevel, you’ll instantly really feel hampered by Slides’ oversimplified objects.

On a number of events, I’ve constructed my presentation decks out in PowerLevel to get the appear and feel I actually wished, then exported the slides to Google Slides to make use of them or distribute them to workforce members. That’s a fairly damning truth in terms of declaring which is the superior presentation device.

Bottom line

For most individuals, the free Google apps will not be simply free, however simpler to make use of and collaborate with than Microsoft Office is. Since most of us have Gmail or Youtube accounts anyway, we have already got Google accounts and may simply work there with none further subscriptions or decisions. But for critical professionals with particular wants in visible presenting or knowledge evaluation, Microsoft nonetheless reigns supreme by a large margin. And should you do want these capabilities, your organization should purchase your Office365 subscription for you. Don’t spend your individual hard-earned cash on it.