The price argument is a no-brainer, landing squarely in Google's favor. Because my organization has under 50 employees . Should my organization grow I'll be faced with a $50 per year charge for each user. That's around $4.17 per month, per user. For the same kind of Office 365 service once it's out of beta . That's around a third more.

Office 365 that's superior in some ways to Google Docs. It includes Exchange e-mail, online versions of the Office apps, and the Lync chat/video conferencing software, as examples. But few of these services are difficult to find elsewhere for zero cost: Skype's pretty good at chat and video conferencing, for example, and I've seen even large businesses make good use of it.

Above all, Office 365 is a terrific product but I'm left feeling it's over-engineered. As the admin for a small business, Google Apps feels significantly more nimble and fuss-free.

Take adding a new user, for example: With Google Apps, this is a matter of filling-in a small dialog box with the new user's name. With Office 365, and assigning licenses. (Remember: This is Microsoft, king of the software license.)

When the new user logs in for the first time, things are again different. After agreeing to the license agreement, new Google Apps users will be presented with something virtually identical to what they see when they access their personal Gmail account. Their Inbox is visible immediately and they can click the Docs link to start creating files. It's clear how to start working from the get-go.