Technology does not stand still, it is constantly evolving and increasing productivity. So when you come across some issues that prevent you from normal collaborating you should ask yourself what went wrong. When small and midsized companies decide to go to the cloud they usually choose between Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 for business. To make the choice that would be right for you take care of the three issues described below.
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Which browser do you use for work: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari?
Browsers operate in different way with different technologies. E.g. Internet Explorer still has not implemented all the HTML5 and CSS3 features to display sites’ content. As a user you do not want to be held back by the browser. Office 365 Microsoft onlOine works fine in all the main browsers including IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. You do not need to set up any additional extensions to make it work properly. You can edit and save Office 365 documents and files without any fear to lose the data after your format them.
Google Drive works best with Chrome browser. But even there you need to install additional “Office Editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides” extension to have a chance to edit Office 365 files right in the browser. In other browsers to edit Office documents through Google Docs you will need to convert them to the standard Google format and risk losing some part of your data.
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How do you share and collaborate on Office 365 documents?
As you work with other people in one organization you often have to share your documents with them and give them access to edit your personal files.
Office 365 gives you strong instruments for collaboration. You can leave comments for your colleagues right in the document. You can even give access to your O365 documents to people who have no Microsoft account.
Google Drive on the contrary holds back the Office documents. The only way for you to share your Office 365 file through Google is to send them by email like in old good times. To be able to collaborate and write your comments in the document you need to conver it to standard Google Drive format risking to lose your data as well.
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Spend time to fix the format of documents
With all the different devices you are obliged to work with files using all of them. And you expect these files to look similar no matter what device you use. And you can be sure that they will with Office 365 as this platform can be customized for iPads and other mobile devices just as well as for usual desktops. And you do not need to spend time to make the file look the way you need to be able to work with it.
The situation is different with Google. You may lose formatting of your Office documents if you open them via Google.
To be sure that you never lose your Office 365 documents no matter what device you select for working make sure that you back up your Office 365 with applications like Upsafe. If you do you will never lose a bit of your cloud data again.