Shootout with TwinStrata: Google Apps or Microsoft Office which one is the right price?

Just recently, in talking with some folks over at TwinStrata, they claimed they could do an analysis of what the real cost of ownership is when it comes to choosing between Microsoft Office and Google Apps. Kicking a bit of sand in the face of folks like Hyperic who created a lot of buzz through announcing SLA monitoring for Amazon and Google Apps last year, this is an interesting analysis that goes beyond monitoring availability, and takes a look at what the total cost implications are, using historical data about traditional infrastructure patterns as well as Google Apps availability.

Peering into the resulting TwinStrata analysis yields some interesting findings. Is Google Apps a better solution than Microsoft Office? As with everything, it depends. The TwinStrata analysis looks at a 50 user business, and in my opinion comes to the conclusion that if: 1) your business isn't generating revenue with Microsoft Office, and 2) your hourly productivity impacts from Google Apps outages are either relatively low (maybe 50% of your employee hourly costs), or you've taken measures to deal with internet service provider outages, then Google Apps wins on costs. Meanwhile, if any of the above aren't true, and you can afford to take the measures to build and manage your Microsoft infrastructure right, then Microsoft Office might very well come out ahead.

The things that count -- data availability, and data protection. For many small businesses, building the right infrastructure remains a pipe dream, while the cloud creates competitive capabilities on a pay-as-you-go basis.

That's at the heart of some findings that another analyst firm recently released, but they were pretty narrow findings. When the it comes to the cloud, it isn't just about enabling easy access, and making some compromises. The cloud is about unleashing additional capabilities. While I consider Google Apps one of the least innovative cloud technologies on my radar today, even it speaks to unleashing these additional capabilities.

For instance, I still bet someday we see a Google Apps appliance -- sure, folks have talked about it before, right along with the G drive and lots of other Google possibilities. But an eventual Google Apps appliance just makes too much sense. What if you could select any type of storage behind a Google Apps appliance? And what if you could bridge your data stored in a Google Apps appliance to Google Apps in the cloud, at will? Those aren't very big what ifs -- take a look at the Secure Data Connector Google just announced that enables data movement to and fro. Look around, and you'll see lots of folks chasing this data movement paradigm -- everyone from Accellion to EMC Atmos -- and you have to bet that Google gets it. That is why it is worth experimenting today. That is also why in some cases it is worth going full bore cloud today (if the cost case is present, and the issues are negligible), and why some research falls short of identifying the true market potential around cloud technologies.