G Suite is a productivity and collaboration tool kit provided by Google and is a credible alternative to Microsoft’s Office 365 SaaS offering. G Suite helps an organization move faster through intelligent, cloud-based apps to collaborate within themselves and others in real-time. G Suite is web-based, therefore users receive new features and updates automatically. Also, there’s no need to install or update any software.

It provides solutions in 4 main categories:

• Connect: G Mail, Calendar, Hangouts
• Create: Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, Sites, App Maker, Keep, Jamboard
• Access: Drive, Google Cloud Search
• Control: Admin, Vault, Mobile, Work Insights

For any business, email, documents and storage are foundational activities and for these Gmail, Docs / Sheets / Slides and Drive are used. Gmail is Google’s flagship web-based email service with over 1 billion active users worldwide. It is well known and has a low learning curve while being packed with features such as email scheduling, Smart Compose (Google AI assists with composing emails), confidential mode (set emails to expire at a specified time) and other cool features. It also supports Multi-Factor Authentication so users can increase their security profile.

Google Docs, Sheets and slides are comparable to Microsoft’s Word, Excel and Powerpoint. The feature sets are comparable to those available in Microsoft’s products so users would not find a major feature drop-off when completing normal business document processing actions.   Collaboration, both internally and externally, is a necessity in this new global marketplace and G Suite offers Hangouts which is a unified communications service that enables text, voice, or voice chats, either one-on-one or in a group. If a more visual medium is needed, then Jamboard is an interactive business whiteboard for group members to sketch ideas.

Drive is cloud-based storage which provides more than just a holding location for documents. Other goodies include Version history (restore files to a previous version), offline mode (create and edit files even without an internet connection), scan documents from an Android phone and search images and PDFs by text. This last feature is a winner as these file types are notoriously difficult to search by text on Windows systems.

G Suite also provides an admin interface for centralized administration. With the Admin console, business owners can easily add users, manage devices and configure security and settings so that data remains safe. In addition, Google provides tons of resources for the smooth roll out and deployment of G Suite.

Businesses would also have an additional benefit with migrating and standardizing on the G Suite platform: the ability to seamlessly transition from traditional Windows / Linux based workstations to ChromeOS devices. ChromeOS is Google’s browser-based operating system which runs on devices that usually cost less than a comparable Windows machine. Google’s offering of its operating system on a device is the Google Chromebook which boasts a 10 second boot time, longer battery life and great security features. It also provides native access to the G Suite apps which allows users to work offline if needed easily.

The Google ecosystem has a robust global infrastructure with dedicated security measures. Google suite has comprehensive security that is built-in at every layer with advanced detection systems. There is a strong data privacy terms in the contracts, verified by public third-party audits.

With all these features, there exists a strong business case for any company, whether small or large, to consider the Google ecosystem (G Suite / Chromebooks) as their technological platform.

Want to make the transition but not sure how to start? SiRON Technologies can be your IT partner in making this shift as smooth and pain-free as possible. Call us, or we are just a click away.