There was a time when Google’s motto was “Don’t be evil”. At some point they decided to be evil, and as a direct consequence ditched the motto. Their new motto is probably “Be evil”
… and just for the record. A company is not evil by itself but by the people working there! 😉
Not being evil in the past the company’s services were attractive to a lot of people – those preferring goodness and kindness. Google offered the great all-time-free Google Apps (later know as: G Suite and Google Workspace). I used it for the whole family and some small business clients as well. It wasn’t actually free – as in “completely free”. The company displayed targeted ads while you were reading mails. Being able to access the content of your personal e-mails Google created a great advertising platform (while you sold your soul to the devil).
The deal with “the devil” continued for years. But suddenly in the early 2022 Google announced the death of “G Suite legacy free edition”. My first thought was: No problem, I’ll just pay for it.
Dinging into the pricing information I realized how expensive it would be to continue using the platform for multiple parts of the family (some with private domains) and a number of small businesses. Is it then worth it?
After completing a pretty comprehensive including a large number of providers. I concluded Microsoft 365 (with Microsoft 365 Business Basic starting at $6.00 user/month) is the best alternative to Google Workspace for businesses.
For family usage for 2-6 people the Microsoft 365 Family at $99.99/year is a great deal allowing you to use premium apps for everyone in the family. If you don’t need a stripped version of Microsoft Office, but only hosted e-mail or website simply.com is a be a good place to start. I tested the Standard Suite and were impressed with the admin interface. DNS configuration can be handled using templates. Both the control panel and webmail are fast and highly responsive.
If you are on a budget and are using your own domain. You can sign up for a free Microsoft account and simply forward your mail to the assigned outlook.com e-mail address. You will be able to enjoy your unique e-mail address and web versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and ToDo.
At my company we have completed the migration from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 Business Premium. For a reasonable price we get a lot of fantastic features. As we were using several Microsoft apps simultaneous with Google Workspace this was a natural jump for us. I think there must be very many companies that have reached a similar conclusion.
Goodbye Google Workspace and hello Microsoft 365!… and simply.com