Microsoft Office vs Google Apps: Training is the Key

For years, small businesses only had one real choice for business productivity software: Microsoft Office. But that may change as web-based applications, delivered via the cloud, flood the market.

For many, Google Apps represents a viable alternative. However, before a firm chooses to shelve its investment in Microsoft Office there is a lot to consider.

To begin with, software packages evolve over time to accommodate the customer’s requirements. As a relatively young software solution, Google Apps is less complete than the more established Microsoft solution. It is extremely difficult for any company, even Google, to anticipate the real-world requirements for a full-featured solution right out of the gate.

The “completeness” of Google Apps may be less important because of the way its software is delivered. Google Apps is “cloud based”, allowing popular feature requests to be rapidly developed, tested and deployed without the end user having to upgrade his or her software. Once deployed, the new features just appear the next time the user logs in.

Microsoft Office has its benefits too. For example, it has been around for a very long time. A benefit best illustrated by a story I recently read in Network World about Microsoft Windows turning 25 years old. I am including a link to the full article here.

Network World also included a cool slideshow with screenshots of the different versions of Windows through years. To view the slideshow click here.

Just like Windows 7, Microsoft Office 2010 inherits all the lessons learned from the previous decades of end-user feedback, research and development. However, a large number of users do not use or need many of the more advanced features offered in Microsoft Office.

Regardless of whether your organization chooses to use Microsoft Office or Google Apps, end user training is a real key to success.

Google Apps is not a “Webified” version of Microsoft Office. It sorts and presents e-mail differently, key function buttons are positioned in different places and working within a web interface takes some getting used to.

Microsoft Office 2010 has made several user interface changes that will take some getting used to and many of the advanced features that can help business users become more productive need to be pointed out and configured. Once that is completed, end users need to be trained on how to utilize the new features.

As the technology changes and as we get more sophisticated as technology users the way we use our core productivity software will evolve. Firms that embrace this change and seek to apply it in creative ways will gain real-time savings. Time that can be refocused on finding new customers, making current customers happier and finding new ways to more efficiently operate the business.

We spend a lot of time analyzing our client’s productivity needs as part of our outsourced IT service. If you feel like it might be helpful to discuss your needs, click here and we can schedule some time to talk in person!

I am including a brief survey about productivity software. If you have the time, I hope you will complete it. We plan to publish the survey’s results in a future blog posting.

Shift Your Company’s Health Paradigm

Let’s break the 4^th wall and come out into the open that I am a business development associate, and as my title reflects, I am responsible for developing the business of Endsight. Coming from a much more analytical and sociological background, I have been trying to come to a conclusion as to what exactly this entails for me. I know that Endsight sells outsourced IT management, that we assign a CIO, that we have system administrators and help desk guys. But so what?

This is all spectacular and innovative for clients but unless people know what that means for them, this laundry list of services will never take on their full potential. I call people all day long, people with the same problems and issues as I do, but unless I can resolve a pain, whether it be loss of productivity, finances, or customers, people will not take the time to hear about our company. Yes they may be  interested in our service, but they are really interested in what it can DO for them. This big WHAT is stress!

People always want a quick fix for stress and inconvenience in their lives. The same holds true for IT mangement and computer support. But everything in life takes a re-adjustment of perspective for long term goals to be accomplished. To lose weight, you cannot just react to weight gain but proactively help yourself through daily maintenance. And this process is an entire adjustment in thinking that requires someone to change their daily habits and complete nutrition paradigm. The same holds true with IT support. For the burden and stress of computer, server, and application maintenance, one must shift their way of thinking.

Yes- computer support has been done, but we aren’t trying to provide the latest “fad”, but a new way of thinking about computer health and the health of your company.  Humans are subject to their surroundings and must change as they become older, as health concerns arise, as politics evolve- in a long term fashion. A business is not much different in the organic sense of change.

And let’s now come full circle to the underlying issue of stress. If humans and companies are not much different, then shouldn’t they both address the issue of stress similarly? People become fatigued, irritable, desperate, unfocused and even in pain during the onset of stress. Don’t companies then suffer from these same symptoms? 

Endsight provides an awesome service from competent people, but what we really do is shift your business health paradigm. Stress cannot be ignored- it’s the fundamental problem which seems to cause the chain reactions in our lives, and in our businesses, that we dread the most.