Many schools are now enabling students and teachers with access to cloud based applications to produce documents, spreadsheets and prepare presentations.  The two main players are Google Apps for Education and Microsoft 365.  

Both of these applications offer the standard suite of services, like word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, email and calendars and offer large amounts of storage.

There are plenty of reviews available online regarding these two products and for many years Google was the main option for schools.  But Microsoft 365 is now making inroads into this market share with its cloud based Office product.  

So here is a comparison between the two products:

• Mobile Devices
  Both versions can be used on mobile devices and allow access to files offline.

• Microsoft familiarity with decreased functionality Microsoft products are more widely used in the business sector so the standard menu items will look familiar in the Office 365 version.    All the usual features and functionality that you would expect are available, although you may notice that the online version is not as fully functional as the desktop version of Office as there are features missing.  But overall the features are similar. 

• 365 has richer product offering
  When it comes to standard applications like word processing and spreadsheets then Microsoft Office 365 has a richer product offering with more features than the Google App versions. 
  This is good but if you're school is using the basic features of a spreadsheet (like adding up columns and not complex pivot tables) then Google Apps is just perfect for this.

• Google has broader product suit
  In general, Google offer a broader product suite for schools - there are more services on offer and an ever increasing set of new services for education, for example Google Classroom.  Whilst Google has positioned itself well for the education market, Microsoft is also creating new educational services through Office 365 like Teacher Dashboard.  However, Google has the lead for the time being.

• Free for schools
  Both services are free for schools and an increasing list of benefits within the pricing plans. 
  

Which one to Choose?

Schools are fortunate to choose between two very good systems. Each platform has its advantages over the other.  It is a school's decision based on reviewing the products for their specific needs and asking other schools.

Our view:  Microsoft provides a more complete suite of standard applications like Word and Excel which can be downloaded onto a number of computers, full-blown applications that you can install on all of your devices.  Google is all about providing a streamlined product that is fast in the cloud and provides a minimal set of features that are simple to use.  

Maybe that is why we see more primary schools using Google Apps and High School using Microsoft 365.