Poll: Which Web Office Suite Would You Pay For? Adobe or Google?
Today, Adobe announced that their online office suite at Acrobat.com is moving out of beta and they will begin offering both free and paid subscriptions to the web-based suite of applications. For consumers, the change won't have that much of an impact since the core services at Acrobat.com will remain free: Buzzword (the word processor), Presentations (slideshows, still in beta), and Tables (spreadsheets, new today). However, business users will now face a dilemma as Adobe begins to charge for PDF conversion as well as their web meetings product, Adobe ConnectNow.
This move clearly pits Adobe against Google, with both companies now offering premium services to business users. But what will companies choose? Google or Adobe? What would you choose?
Adobe's New Acrobat.com
Along with the announcement about the preview release of Tables, an online spreadsheet application which joins Presentations in the Adobe Labs area, the bigger news today is the pricing plans for the online live meeting service, ConnectNow. Adobe will offer two different plans, a Premium Basic Service and a Premium Plus Service. In addition to online meetings, each service will also include support options and allow users to convert files to PDF format, another feature that will not be accessible to those using the free version of Acrobat.com.
The Basic Service allows up to five participants in an online meeting and supports the conversion of ten documents to PDF per month. This service will cost US $14.99/month, or US $149/year.
The Premium Service allows for up to twenty participants and supports unlimited PDF creation. It will be US $39/month, or US $390/year.
Google Apps: The Better Web Office?
Compared with Google Apps, Adobe's online suite, while arguably a sleeker-looking product, is still very raw when it comes to features. Two of the core office services (Presentations and Tables) are still in beta and there are no email, calendaring, or portal-type applications as there are with Google. In other words, Adobe is content to supplement or replace a business's Microsoft Office install base, whereas Google wants to replace that plus your Exchange server and Sharepoint Server, too.
At $50 per user per year, the question as to whether Google Apps is the more expensive buy really depends on the number of users the company has.
Still, Adobe's key to success is that they're offering something Google doesn't: live web meetings. The closest Google can come to that is Google Video, which allows users to share pre-recorded video presentations like company announcements or training videos. Another option would be Gmail Chat, but it doesn't include ConnectNow's whiteboarding feature. Google also has nothing to do with PDF conversion, although they do allow users to upload and share PDFs in the Google Docs portal.
What To Choose?
Still, when it comes down to it, it's doubtful that any business would pay for two web office suites at the same time just to get a complete set of features. Not only would that not make financial sense, from a support perspective, it would be a mistake, too, especially considering that standardization and consistency are important factors to today's I.T. departments.
Instead, most companies moving to the cloud will have to make the choice: Google or Adobe? What will they choose? What would you choose if you had to decide?
Take the poll and let us know. Feel free to share your reasons why in the comments.
UPDATE: As a few commenters noted, Zoho is also a valid choice for web office suites. However, we intentionally left them out so as not to dilute the vote between the two companies that are arguably industry giants as opposed to (awesome!) startups. ThinkFree is also not included for that reason. If you would choose Zoho, though, vote "Neither" and leave a comment as to why.
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Comments
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Actually neither Google suit nor adobe suit I like to use when zoho like powerful office suit is available.
You can read more about the announcement on the Acrobat.com team blog http://blogs.acrobat.com/acom.
There is an option "Neither"
Posted by: Wins Fern
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June 15, 2009 6:59 AM
Also, to be clear, we announced three offerings today. The free Acrobat.com service is still available and out of public beta, providing unlimited use of our collaborative authoring products, limited PDF conversion, file sharing, and online meetings with up to 3 participants. In addition, the two premium subscription offerings you describe include phone and web support from Adobe, which is important for business people who rely on these services to do work. Finally, our pricing is needs based, not seat based, so people only have to pay for what they need, and thus we do not expect that everyone in a company or team will pay for a subscription.
The only office suite I'd *pay* for is Microsoft's
If it's online, it better be free
That's how the web works, ya know?
A discussion on the best office suite without mentioning Zoho is like talking about the best basketball player who ever played without mentioning Jordan.
Google Docs is very user friendly, Acrobat is not for now, I hope they improve the design. Acrobat has Web meeting, which is very good, Google should have them soon. Google had "Huddle Chat" before, but after 37 signals complained they removed it. It was a great tool without having to pay a ridiculous amount.
They'll likely choose Microsoft's "cloud" version of Office, which will eventually be offered.
Guys, it's $50 per user per YEAR for Google Apps Premier Edition (and free for most). That's about $4 a month, making Adobe's offering both less capable and an order of magnitude more expensive.
Good luck with that...
Sam
I think for me it would have to be google, but I'm right in the same boat as Dan Grossman. If its online, it best be free :)
@Erik: Thanks, the blog post is linked from the opening & support options are (briefly) noted.
@esb: I agree that many IT folks could be waiting to see what Microsoft's cloud suite does before making their final decision.
@Chris: Interesting thought re: Huddle Chat. Wonder if we'll ever see a return of that in Apps?
You somehow completely missed Gmail video chat, which works in the web browser, and together with remote-controlled presentation from Docs provides a nice solution for a remote meeting.
I prefer adobe products because i am more used to them. Although solutions from google are a good tool if you want basic stuff.
I don't have enough information
@Sam - thanks for correcting that. I was stroking out at the thought of paying $600/year/employee.
@Sarah - you might want to correct that
@Adobe - you might want to think a little further on your pricing plan. The old economy of "maximizing shareholder value" is giving way to "creating value for your customers". The value this suite creates for your customers is far out of line with amount you are asking them to pay - particularly in this marketplace and in this economy. Seriously, $149 per year and we only get to create 120 pdf files? What would you say your marginal cost on the creation of those files is? I'd guess it's south of one cent.
Open Office does the same at an infinitely lower price point.
*cough* Wave... *cough*
Posted by: https://creativecommons.net/zach/
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June 15, 2009 8:18 AM
@Ihar/@Sam: Updated. Apparently my brain is not communicating well with my fingers today. I really miss coffee.
Very interesting that Adobe is getting on board with this online office suite idea. Google still seems to have a leg up as this feels like a young project. It seems that Zoho is way better competition at this point although lacks the big name Google and Zoho posses.
Google Apps Training: http://pressplaysolutions.com/
The performance of any online productivity suite will be awful compared to a native desktop app. I highly doubt anyone will shell out money for a cloud based app when MS Office is so reasonably priced and works so well. That being said, if I had to choose between the two, I would pick Adobe. They have been making software much longer than Google, and their products speak for themselves.
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft's Online product is the heavy weight we should be talking about?
@Dan Grossman,@Karl.
Google Docs is FREE for non-business use.
Adobe's offering, while visually pleasing, is less capable and more costly. I think if I were moving my business to a cloud based office suite, Google or Zoho would be my choices. Plus, I would have the added benefit of IM, email, tasks etc.
Posted by: http://khurt.com/blog/
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June 15, 2009 9:33 AM
Hello, I wanted to clarify a few things, I hope this helps with the discussion.
-Acrobat.com is still free for both business and personal use, even though it is no longer in beta; nothing has changed in that regard with this announcement.
-We offer our highly-capable free service to create massive value for business people who need to work together on documents, because as Geoff says, we know that is what we must do to meet customers' expectations in today's rapidly changing world.
-We have two premium offerings that add additional capabilities intended for intensive business use. The features we are charging for (online meetings and PDFs with phone/web support) are not offered by Google.
-Our pricing is needs based, not per seat, so you only pay for what you need, and we expect most people, including business people, will find the free service sufficient.
-At the same time the premium versions of Acrobat.com offer competitive prices for competitive services that offer a lot of value, and we believe business people are willing to pay a fair value for valuable services...that is the essence of business.
-Erik Larson (Twitter @erikdlarson)
Adobe Systems
If you want to maximize your company's return on investment, you should consider Adaptive Engineering and its Concourse 3(TM) software suite. Concourse streamlines all kinds of inefficiencies, especially in customer service call centers.
Meanwhile its incredibly user-friendly interface makes it very simple to collaborate with co-workers on apps like spreadsheets and word processors, regardless of whether it's Adobe or Google.
Google has demonstrated a solid commitment to the Apps offering with continuous improvement. The Acrobat apps have been very slow to materialize and seem to emphasize form over function.
With the exception of heavy spreadsheeting, Google Apps are just about ready for primetime. The sharing features really change the game from MS Office.
Neither. But adobe's UX looks much better and the competition is good for us users. Good to have this before google wave steps in and plants its flag.
I certainly do not need an online office suite. I have everything I need right here on my computer. I feel that my privacy would be threatened if I used online office suites. The less personal and business information I have online, the better. And why should I trust that these big Internet companies won't change their privacy policies in the future.
Google has a pretty raw kind of office suite to pay for. If I have to pay, I'll surely pay for MS Office which is far better than any other office suite. In web office suites, I think Zoho is the best.
If I wasn't such a dedicated Google user I would definitely want to check out this Adobe Suite. Google Docs has been great for the last few years, but the product has hardly advanced over this time. It is getting frustrating dealing with the same problems this long. Maybe it is time to see what Adobe has got..
Zoho gets my vote. Their spreadsheet and docs apps kill Google Apps.
Once Wave hits the street, it'll blow Adobe's out of the water in terms of collaboration. Adobe looks slick, but with CS being rushed out every year and every update being a full version number so they can cash in, I'd say we're already spending enough on them...
Google Apps for me. At around $50.00 per year for a Premium account, you really can't compare that to Adobe's. Google provides a robust and stable platform for my business needs.
+1 to Zoho. Zoho applications are 10 times better than Google or other online applications.
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Whats up with the random comments on here?
Anyways, nice article. :D
Absolutely the internet giant google....
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Neither. I still prefer MS Office and with their upcoming online functionality in 2010, I'll take that and pay full price and be much better off. $50 for Google Apps/year is still too expensive. Maybe $50 one time would be worth it. It's more like shareware than real software. The presentation piece is atrocious, the spreadsheet is so rudimentary, the ability to import and export MS Office files, despite the marketing, does not work in a way that files keep their look and feel at 100% (especially in word and presentation docs).
So far i'm comfortable using MS Office (call me ancient) and use web collaboration service HyperOffice to collaborate on my MS Office files.
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HyperOffice also offers different pieces of the collaboration puzzle in a single solution - email, workspaces, document management, project management, calendars, online meetings.
Thank you for your sharing.!
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