Google and Microsoft have been the kings of the email world for a while already and they have developed many different features which have both pros and cons. And still many people and organizations simply use it and do not even think of any alternatives feeling pleased with what they have at the moment.
If you are not using any of them in your work but only planning to implement cloud based solutions you may need help to understand the main differences. In this article I will review all the light and dark sides of both products to help you make the right choice between MS Outlook and Gmail.
Price
Gmail charges its business users $60-120 per user per year for Gmail apps account together with all the applications that come along with it. However you can get a discount and pay only $50 per year if you switch a certain number of your employees to Gmail and create a certain amount of accounts.
Office 365 costs make up $48-96 per user per year. Note that it is only for Microsoft Outlook online, all other programs are not included into this price.
Offline access
We do not always have Internet connection that’s why the ability to access your emails offline is vital.
Outlook gives its users offline access to their emails. You can view all your inbox offline, delete some emails or respond to the others. As soon as the Internet connection is back all the changes will be applied to your inline emails.
Gmail offers you offline access too, but you can only view the emails 30 days into the past. Also Gmail can be accessed online only in Google Chrome and Safari. Outlook has no such limitations.
Scheduling online meetings
If you actively use calendar for planning multiple meetings then Outlook would be the best tool for you. MS Outlook allows you to schedule conference and meeting rooms, you can simply add them as resources to your meeting. The program will then be able to check whether you are available on a certain hour and sends auto-responses to the meeting invites.
In Gmail you need to use lots of side tools like primary and secondary calendars.
Storage provided
Amount of online storage may be crucial for any company as they receive many emails everyday and each of these emails occupies some space.
With Outlook you have unlimited storage. You are able to attach a file which weights no more than 100mb to your email. If you take a file out of your Onedrive it can even weight up to 300mb.
Gmail limits you with 15Gb. This space you are given for free. Of course, you can always purchase more, and you can attach the files that weight up to 10Gb if they are located in your Google Drive.
Safety
Your online data safety is the most important factor, and both Gmail and Outlook work hard to provide you with secure service.
They both offer you 2-factor authentication. You rusers will have to put in not only the password but also the code they receive to their mobile devices.
Another way to make your data secure is to encrypt it. Gmail allows you to do this with third-party tools, but Outlook does not.
Also both of the systems have good spam filters. But Outlook above all else provides you with a special button “Unsubscribe” while Gmail does not.
So these are the main ups and downs of Gmail and Outlook. Estimate them and see which instrument would work for you best. But no matter what your choice will be don’t forget that no cloud solution can protect you against the user’s error. that’s why additional precautions will never be excess. If you do regular backups of your Office 365 data or if you set up Gmail backup you can always be sure that your data will never be lost.