Microsoft slams Google Apps, calls its costs tantamount to excessive taxation

TNW Quick Hit:

Everyone knows that Microsoft is never going to cede one inch of its market position in the enterprise sector to Google without going to war first, and the company again made that plain today in a fiery blog post that called out Google Apps for small and medium-sized businesses as far more expensive than advertised.

Microsoft, using its cash as a weapon, interviewed 90 companies (small to medium in size) in five countries that use Google Apps and found that 90% use Microsoft Office alongside of Apps.

But Microsoft was not content to just point out that many companies require the (it must be said) more extensive productivity feature set that Office offers over Apps, but went after Google Apps for being too costly:

On the surface, Google Apps may seem like acceptable replacements for enterprise-grade products such as Microsoft Exchange Server or Microsoft Office. But many IT organizations have found that Google Apps bring extra, hidden costs. Organizations that have evaluated Google Apps have found that the projected versus actual costs of switching to Google Apps greatly increase their total cost of ownership (TCO). In particular, these IT organizations have found that Google Apps are not enterprise-ready and are inadequate without costly add-on applications, even for most small and medium-sized organizations. The three general areas where organizations feel the Google Tax most strongly are deployment, IT support costs and user training.

Microsoft whipped up this rather childish ‘infographic’ to illustrate its point:

Of course, this is a one-sided view on the matter, but Microsoft’s point that a company coming from a legacy position as a Microsoft customer looking to move to Apps can’t just look at the yearly cost per user as advertised, is fair. Then again, if any company actually thought that that was the case, that they are still in business while suffering from such ignorance is a miracle.

For truly nimble small businesses who doesn’t need Postini, or Google support, or to migrate from anything to Google Apps, the cost could truly land down around the $50 mark, which is quite the deal.

We watch the productivity space very carefully here at TNWmicrosoft because Office is such a driving force in Microsoft’s earnings. Sound off in the comments if you think that Google is going to respond.

Update: Google has responded:

There’s a reality distortion field over Redmond. Customers know Google’s much less expensive than Microsoft.