Week 3 MIST 7500 - SaaS via Office Productivity Suites

Anyone that has worked in an office setting, been a student, or ran a small business has used some form of office productivity software.  More than likely that software was Microsoft Office (particularly Word, Excel, and Powerpoint).  Software was either purchased or provided by the company and installed on the computer's hard drive. 

With SaaS, users have the ability to access these types of programs online and don't need to go through the actual installs normally associated with software.  I've tested three different types of SaaS programs for office type work and below I have written a comparison of each.  I'll also briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using traditional software vs. these new SaaS offerings.

Office 365

As the name states, this is Microsoft's version of SaaS for Office.  You'll see that Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are all available.  The good thing about this software is that it's just like using regular office except you're accessing it over the internet and not locally.  Integration between traditional office and Office 365 seemed to work without issues.  I could open up one doc created in one in the other, and vice versa.  Overall, if you are familar with Microsoft Office, you should have no problems picking up Office 365. It was a free trial however, so I'm assuming there was a cost associated with it if you choose to use is permanently.

Google Docs

Google docs is basically Office for Google.  Documents, Spreadsheets, Powerpoints, Forms, etc. are all available.  The major positive about Google docs is it's integration with everything Google.  When you create a Google doc, you can pretty much access that doc anywhere within the other Google tools.  It will also allow you to upload standard office type docs (.doc, .xls, .ppt, etc.).  If someone sends you a Google doc, you should have no problems opening it in your local version of office.  I did find that cutting pasting did not work very well, but after some tweaking I was able to get it to work without issues.

Zoho

Zoho is similar to Google Docs in that it's also similar to Office.  Word, Excel, and Powerpoint type docs are all present.  The look and feel of the program is similar to office, so it's intuitive, but there are some subtle differences that you will have to get used to as well.  Importing docs seemed to work ok and there was even an option to import Google Docs specifically.  Overall a pretty slick set of tools that certainly meet your basic needs of an office productivity suite.

Advantages of SaaS

I think the biggest advantage is SaaS is cost savings.  Both Google Docs and Zoho are free services so there is no direct cost to the user.  Corporate licensing of software can get very expensive and this would be a nice way to save some money.  Another advantage of SaaS is the cloud technology.  All of your docs are stored on the cloud/online storage so you can get to those docs from anywhere that you can get a connection to the internet.  Online collaboration is also possible, so you can share the most updated docs in real time.

Disadvantages of SaaS

The major disadvantage that I see with SaaS is that you actually have to be online to use it.  If you are on a plane and need to crank out a document or put together a last minute presentation, you're not going to be able to do it with SaaS.  Another disadvantage is that you do lose some of the functionality that a full blown traditional version would provide, and to get those other features you have to pay or pay extra.  For the basic user this would not be a problem, but for a heavy user it certainly could be.  In addition, there are also some issues with compatibility such as cutting and pasting from traditional programs.

Conclusion

I think that these office Suites are a good substitute for the traditional Microsoft Office suite.  They offer good basic functionality at no to little cost.  If you're always online and don't need the full blown functionality of the traditional software, this is a great practical option.