Google Apps Premium vs. Office

I recently posted about Google releasing a new version of their Google Apps offering on the Office 12 Watch site. You can go there for more details about the application itself. I’d like to focus on something else for the Microsoft Weblog site, the costs attributed to Office software compared to the $50 for Google Apps Premium.

Today, it introduces Google Apps Premium Edition, a software suite for companies that provides e-mail, instant messaging, calendar, word processing and spreadsheets. The cost is $50 per worker per year vs. about $500-$600 for Microsoft Office.

Since when does it cost $500-$600 for Microsoft Office for a business? Granted you can get the Office Ultimate for $679, but if you’re purchasing that, the Google Apps service isn’t going to come close to providing you the functionality you’re looking to achieve. Classic case of non apples-to-apples comparison. Let’s look at the key features offered by Google Apps and the compliment software from Microsot Office:

• Gmail = Outlook
• Google Talk = MSN Messenger
• Google Calendar = Outlook
• Start Page = existing server page
• Docs = Word
• Spreadsheets = Excel
• Page Creator = Publisher or Word

So, by looking at that, we need Outlook, Messenger (free), Word, Excel, Publisher.

The Microsoft Office Small Business Edition is currently retailing for $393.99 at Amazon.com, and that would take care of everything we need. So why is the article stating the cost is $100-$200 more than that? That price also doesn’t take into account the volume purchasing options that are available directly from Microsoft for as little as five licenses.