GoogleApps*

GoogleApps is a program that I have been aware of for a few years, but I have never truly used. In my experience, they have a 50% success rate for groups that I have seen use this application. I do believe the integrity, maturity, and dependability of the groups working with GoogleApps does have an impact on how well the system works.

Advantages
The advantages of using GoogleApps are numerous, there is no doubt. One of the better advantages I believe is that groups do not always have to get together or have one person in charge of combining parts of a project. It is also great for students or group members that perhaps do not have, or cannot afford, the costly Microsoft Office Package. Another advantage is that GoogleApps saves as someone types, so work is not lost by accidentally clicking the X. Also, if one works in GoogleApps, a crashed hard drive or USB drive put through the wash does not mean everything is completely gone. On the same thread, if something is stored on GoogleApps, it can be accessed with ease from any computer, no need for USB drives or external hard drives. After playing around, I also found that Google Picasa 3 (a picture editing program) works seamlessly with the Presentation maker. The feature of being able to just open and close documents, not having to extract them, is also a positive in favor of GoogleApps. The biggest advantage of this application is that it is FREE, not hundreds of dollars like Microsoft Office.

Disadvantages
GoogleApps is still definitely lacking in some situations where Microsoft Office excels (pun not intended). Microsoft Office provides templates to make things such as newsletters, invitations, name tags, etc whereas GoogleApps does not. Not helping this situation is the fewer number of features that GoogleApps has. There appears to be more freedom to be creative in Microsoft Office. Another disadvantage is the simplicity of GoogleApps. Everything seems to be Economy (from Charts to clip art to transitions) whereas in Microsoft, things have a higher quality feel about them.

While I still would choose Microsoft Office products over GoogleApps, I believe GoogleApps is giving Microsoft good competition, and with a few tweaks and a few more years, Microsoft could be in trouble!