I would easily opt for a Microsoft version of Google CLoud connect, Had it existed.

BTW Google bought Docverse longtime back. If I were microsoft, I would have made such a feature inbuilt in all office releases by now. ! I donno why MS didnt do it yet ?

Rather than continuously slam Google and their offerings, show me where you have really innovated and created something that provides great value.  I won't hold my breath because I already know the answer; you can't.  I'm the IT Director for a chemical manufacturer in Georgia.  I switched to Gmail for my enterprise about 16 months ago.  Why?  Money.  In order to upgrade my aging Exchange/Outlook infrastructure I was going to need about $115,000 of capital money.  In this economy that was not going to happen.  But I still needed to support 300 users and my staff was cut down to two, including me.  So, rather than stick with the old, I decided to try the new.  Google Apps costs me about $15,000 per year.  I negotiated a new multiyear contract with my ISP, saving me $12,000 per year and paying for almost all of Google Apps yearly fees.  I no longer have to deal with Exchange database issues, PSTs, spam, or any of the other hassles of email processing and storage.  And none of my users need VPN (or Citrix) to check their email from home.  I looked at Exchange Online and it gave me only email (with a fraction of the storage) for the same price.  With Google Apps, I get all of the other Google services too.  Google Talk has been fantastic for video conferencing and Google Sites allows each department to create their own website, easily and with no extra hardware or software.  When you spend all your energy talking down the competition rather than talking up your own offerings, it sends one signal...fear.  And be afraid, be very afraid.

I have to disagree with some of you.  I rather enjoy reading MSFT's view on Google's stuff and then all the comments.  It's better than reading their marketing hype about their own stuff.  Keep up the good job MSFT in telling us why Google stinks.  I agree with you!

I think you're all crazy.  Name something Google has done innovative that has sticked (Wave, Buzz???) or they haven't acquired (DocVerse, Writely, JotSpot).  Rather than Office, look at OpenOffice and kick both Microsoft and Google out the door!

I found @Doug's comments quite familiar - in a small startup business I support, we found ourselves debating what to do with our legacy email system, Microsoft Small Business Server 2003. The official Microsoft upgrade path is apparently "oh, we hadn't thought of that": it is a 32-bit only product, whose direct replacement is 64-bit only. New server hardware was out of the question, but migrating to Google Apps for email made a great deal of sense.

As sole sysadmin for two small companies, and primary sysadmin for a university department, Google offer a much more attractive email and calendar platform than Exchange - but we don't even seriously consider using the Docs components for most things, though it's quite handy for shared notes, inventory data, things like that. On the university side, though, we're actually going to Microsoft's Live@Edu rather than Google.

I think both Microsoft and Google would like to see Google Apps as attacking Microsoft Office, but I would say the reality is that it competes with Exchange and to a lesser extent Outlook. (One die-hard fanboy uses Outlook as his IMAP client - odd, but it seems to work OK for him.) As a replacement for Word or Excel, generally, it isn't quite there - but for email, it's well in the lead.

Thanks for the post and video.

So what might you propose as an alternative?

Also, I'm using Windows Live Mesh, but I recently discovered than when I try to edit a file synced from my computer into Skydrive via Mesh, the only way to edit it is to download it and edit it in MS Word.

Is there a way to get around this? Any thoughts?

Thanks and again, great article.

You say "Unless you change the default setting, anyone in your domain can find and access your document." This is untrue, and probably disingenuous on your part. I don't know how else to take it, unless you know so little about the product that you are reviewing that you ... I'm stopping this thought right now.

Your Google Apps admin sets the default setting to "searchable," "linkable," or "private." If your admin has set your entire domain to "searchable" by default, and you don't change the default, then, yes, it's searchable. But if you have any sensitive positions like HR or accounting, that chap should be fired immediately and replaced with someone competent.

Most admins of any repute will set the domain default to "private," and no documents will be shared without express consent.

Fantastic post. Here’s a tool that lets you build your cloud database apps without coding http://www.caspio.com/

Awesome post.  Here’s a tool that lets you build your cloud database apps without coding http://www.caspio.com/

I just realised that GCC has been syncing Office documents THAT I'VE NEVER OPENED since I installed GCC!

This is so wrong!

I'm uninstalling it right now.

The problem that I wanted to solve with GCC is that I need to do collaborative work with people but in order to use skydrive people need to have a Live account and connect to it to access the shared file. Unfortunately, this is too much to ask for most people...

My GCC has messed up everything. It makes Google Drive stop syncing between the cloud/the local computer. I just get up error messages and it connects different accounts with eachother randomly, which is a disaster when we have costumers connected. When I uninstalled it everything was running smoothly again..

I am in love with Google Drive but I can gladly live without GCC.