Technology | Microsoft v Google: which one is right for lawyers

Those two leviathans of the online software market, Google and Microsoft, remain the only real contenders out there. Having enjoyed ownership of the desktop market for the last twenty years, the move to cloud-based computing has provided Microsoft with the first meaningful competition to that dominance in its history.

Some industry experts think that Microsoft's fray into the online market has come far too late in the day. This is a problem regularly associated with staying dominant in a particular market for too long. It's entirely possible that Microsoft neither understood where the competition would come from, or what it would look like.

It's also possible that arrogance, or lethargy, may have played a part. After all, if you own the desktop software market, what is there to worry about?

Google's massive inroads have been built on the back of its dominance of the internet search market. Google has presided over this part of users' desktops in the same way Microsoft did the application side. Using this as a springboard it has produced numerous facilities for users, including document production and email management tools, both traditional Microsoft monopolies.

Anyone doubting Google's market position and share need only check the statistics for the email management side of the business. Google boast many thousands of clients of all sizes, and are handling email for many millions of customers despite their relatively recent involvement with the market

There are plenty of reasons why its service looks attractive but the stand-out ones are price and infrastructure. Google's pricing ranges from free to a few pounds per user per month, depending on the type of facilities you require. Even the most expensive variety is incredibly inexpensive compared to the cost of running servers and traditional email infrastructures and that's before you factor in the additional services that are bundled in.

Google offers all sorts of facilities as part and parcel of its services. These include document production (word processing, spreadsheets and presentations), website tools, and a constantly expanding array of other functions. If you stop to consider the cost and the maintenance implications of providing all this on a traditional infrastructure, you quickly realise that for the average firm, Google's offering comes at a fraction of both the cost and the effort required. It is compelling stuff when considered on paper but the question is whether it suits the work patterns of firms, and for our circumstances, law firms.

Reigning champion

As a Google and a Microsoft user, I have experienced the pros and cons of both systems but have only delivered Microsoft's offering to law firm clients.

Google's applications are reasonably feature rich but fall down in areas that will be of concern to busy lawyers. For a start, the document production applications are cumbersome to use and not as feature rich as the Microsoft versions. For casual users this may not be an issue, but for the document intensive environment of a law firm, it's a real showstopper. The lack of familiarity in the interface will also put users off.

While you can save Google documents in Word format, it is a cumbersome process, and thus forces users to adopt Google's document format and its proprietary storage facility, Google Drive, for document storage. Google Drive uses search technology to locate documents but, having used it for some time, I still struggle with the concept and the operation. For users of feature rich document management systems it feels like going back in time.

Google also suffers from being online only '“ no internet connection means no work, although Google are making noises about a desktop that will work locally (like desktop applications) to get around this. Despite the abundance of internet connectivity in Britain, there are still plenty of occasions when I find myself without a connection and thus unable to work on Google.

Microsoft's offering, while not perfect, at least gives the user the comfort of a familiar interface and a set of tools that most will expect to see. There are issues to address though. The online versions of Microsoft applications do not run VBA code, so cannot run customised functions and integration add-ons from third party vendors the way the desktop applications can. Microsoft gets around this by offering a copy of the desktop products on their more expensive offerings, so the user can not only work offline, but it also ensures continuity with legacy developments.

So the Microsoft offering wins comfortably for law firms on functionality. One of the stumbling blocks to take up would have been the price but Microsoft has continually lowered this as a direct response to Google's increasing market share. I can't really see Microsoft's prices falling to Google's level, but that should not matter quite so much bearing in mind the quality of the services on offer.

None of this will prevent the Google juggernaut from rolling forward, and those among you who browse the likes of PC World from time to time will notice the Google Chromebook stands that have popped up. These are laptops that run Google's internet only offerings, the theory being that you do not need to purchase any additional software once you have the device.

At some point, Google will address the more specific functional needs of professional users, but for now, Microsoft is still the right choice.