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For the vast majority of IT decision makers, cloudy offices fit their organisations like a glove. That’s one of the key findings from a study released by software vendor BetterCloud, which found 95% of the almost 270 respondents agree that Office 365 and Google Apps suit their workplace needs well.
Comparing the two, however, is something which is too tempting to resist. 44% of Google Apps users say that system fits their needs ‘very well’, compared with 39% for Office 365, while Google also comes out on top for users who complain about poor suitability; 1% compared to 6% of Microsoft users. Putting all the figures together, 40% say their cloud office solutions suit their company ‘very well’, with 55%, 4% and 1% going for ‘well’, ‘poorly’, and ‘very poorly’ respectively.
The report also, as one would expect, digs in to the key pain points and benefits of moving to cloud apps. Again, it appears Google has the slight advantage. More Office 365 users (57%) cited security as a key issue compared to Google Apps (37%), while integration with current business systems is also more of a headache for Microsoft houses (29% and 22% respectively).
Whether security is better with Google, or whether it is just less of a hot button issue for its customers, remains to be seen. Yet there is an interesting development in this report. Previous surveys from BetterCloud argue Google is the more likely home for smaller businesses compared to the more enterprise-focused Microsoft. This study, however, focuses solely on medium to large enterprises – so one would expect security to be especially vital.
Elsewhere, more than half (54%) of respondents reported needing less effort with their storage management or data recovery plays, while more than two thirds (67%) say they get things done more quickly with migration to the cloud. This positivity was the key point of the report’s conclusion.
“Cloud applications are at the heart of the evolution of IT,” the report notes. “This is causing a shift in the skills of IT professionals and is changing the jobs they are doing.
“The use of cloud applications is impacting the culture in organisations broadly, and in IT departments especially,” it adds. “Offloading applications to the cloud frees technology administrators from mundane tasks and enables more innovation, while at the same time users become empowered and more productive.”
You can find out more about the report and download it here (registration required).
