Great analysis, Andrew! I'm glad to see Microsoft rebuffing these ridiculous claims. I wish this sort of information had been out last year when we were considering the switch. BPOS is better in every way over Google Apps, and, combined with the fact that we could ditch WebEx, we're saving real dollars (not just made-up ones!) every month thanks to BPOS.
Jake Harris
19 Jun 2010 12:16 AM
All Negative?
21 Jun 2010 3:03 PM
Could this be any more one sided? Sure the calculator is obviously stupid but you can't just point out the negatives in the scenario. Your biggest concern, the fidelity of using docs with outside customers. What about the potential increase in productivity for the internal company users of docs. Or a mid size organization where you want to complain about the costs of adding software to desktops. How much cost is associated with the backup, management, upgrade, and maintenance costs of running exchange, sql server, sharepoint, ocs. Those specialists don't have small salaries. What about the increased data center size and cooling required for hosting your own email? Google absolutely should fix this calculator, no question. But my goodness, when attacking something for being inaccurate and flawed you can't just ignore the potential data that doesn't fit your agenda.
21 Jun 2010 6:37 PM
@All negative? - Thanks for the comment. First, this is about their calculator not our own. My next post will be discussing how we include such costs holistically. Second, your point about adding software to desktops is something Google does miss. There are several scenarios where you must deploy software to clients for Google scenarios to work fully. Like a new browser, or add ins for offline or outlook connectors if you still use what's likely on the machine, or GTalk rich client or video add in's etc. That is missing in their calculator. So we agree there. Finally seems like we agree their calculator is bogus and needs great improvement but this is my point. If you see, I see it, why dont they and why would they promote this thing? Is that something you think speaks of business ready, trustworthy type of stuff?
CloudNinja
23 Jun 2010 4:02 PM
Andrew - do you have an article on the Windows Azure TCO calculator? www.microsoft.com/.../tco
Billy
7 Oct 2010 1:08 AM
...or the frankly laughable Hyper-V vs VMware calculator? Seems Google don't have a monopoly on using dumb calculators with little basis in reality as marketing tools.
M$
17 Dec 2013 7:27 AM
Technology is evolving, people are moving, IT maintenance is getting cheaper, work becomes easier, but Microsoft and its employees still want people to live in the 90's by defending and enforcing old M$ legacy. Pathetic