Major university chooses Google Apps over Microsoft Office 365

Organizations everywhere are debating the best way to migrate systems to the cloud. And one of the biggest decisions they face is the best cloud provider for their needs

The University of California-Berkeley just went through an exhaustive process to choose a new cloud-based email and calendar provider, weighing options from both Google Apps and Microsoft’s Office 365. (The University of Washington just went through a similar process as it ditched its old Alpine email system earlier this year).

Now, here’s what Berkeley concluded after looking at both Google Apps and Office 365 to replace its CalMail system.

“While both products are feature rich and offer advantages over our current environment, the analysis concluded that the Google offering was the better overall fit for the campus at this time,” university officials wrote in a message earlier this week.

But now here’s the really interesting part. The university went beyond the traditional press release by laying out a detailed analysis of how Google Apps and Office 365 perform in critical areas.

As you’ll see in the Berkeley matrix assessment, it wasn’t a slam dunk for Google. Microsoft got higher marks in security, contract terms and ease-of-use with its calendar functionality.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

But Berkeley decided to go with Google in part because it was easier to roll out and many of its students and faculty were already familiar with Gmail. Berkeley officials noted that Office 365 is still very much a new service. And they pointed out that one of the early adopters of the technology, The University of Nebraska, still had not migrated its email system to the 

The report also notes that Microsoft’s previous online service offerings — BPOS and Live@EDU — did not have “exceptional track records for performance.”

“Google’s solution is optimized for web-based interaction,” the report says. “It is designed to be quickly provisioned and a migration to Google could begin more quickly than one to Office 365.” The university estimated that it would take six to 10 weeks to migrate systems to Google.