Microsoft and Google, two of the heavyweights of the computing world, have gone head-to-head with their suites of cloud based office applications, offering email, word processing, spread sheets and a whole lot more. But which should you go for? Dominic Pollard provides the basic low down.

Office 365 has a variety of plans from which to choose, including specific packages for professionals, small and mid-size enterprises, and academic and educational institutions.

All of the plans ensure greater levels of security and reliability through more robust disaster recovery capabilities. They also protect against email spam and viruses and come with a 99.9% uptime guarantee for optimum efficiency and productivity assurance for the buyer.

The plan aimed at small businesses costs just £4 per user per month and offers the familiar Microsoft Office Apps suite which will run on PCs, Macs, and most smart phones. Each user has an email account with 25-gigabytes of storage space and there are shared calendars so entire teams can view the schedules of their colleagues (so much for bunking off!). This plan also eradicates the need for in-house IT expertise with its simple to use, easy to manage set-up.

Alternatively, for larger businesses and enterprises, Office 365 offers a range of services from a more basic package priced at £6.50 per user per month, up to £17.75 per user per month for the most comprehensive and advanced service. All plans offer the basic products and services such as Outlook, shared calendars and 24/7 support. The more expensive packages offer the full suite of Office tools, unlimited email storage space and enhanced data visualization with Visio Services.

Google Apps, meanwhile, is somewhat less flexible in the packages available for businesses. It offers a standard deal of £5.00 per user per month or, as a cost-cutting measure, businesses can buy an annual plan of £50.00 per user per year, saving £10.00 a head.

Google Apps for Business offers the client Gmail accounts with a storage capacity of 25-gigabytes; calendar apps; Google Docs storage of one gigabyte per user; and 24/7 phone and email support. This is to name but a few of the wide range of products, apps and services that Google provide – the full list is expansive.

The product also allows for email encryption, customised password strength and customised spam filtering, all of which ensures a safer, more secure services – one of the most pressing concerns for any company looking to invest in cloud computing services.

Like Office 365, Google Apps also offers a package for educational institutions, as well as having services to suit governments. There is a 40% discounted package for US non-profit organisations of over 3,000 users.

The sliding scale in the pricing from these two providers, from a free service for very basic packages and for specific organisations and institutions, to more expensive and comprehensive packages for large corporations and enterprises, allows for each company to find something to suit their specific needs. Subscription to either service will give a company's employees immediate access from whatever device and from wherever they may find themselves to centrally stored software and data.

Ultimately, you would expect little less from these two heavyweights of the computing world. Each offers software, programs and applications which even the least technology savvy person would feel comfortable and, more importantly, familiar with. The Microsoft suite is familiar to pretty much anyone that’s ever used a computer while the Google applications have clearly been built with ultimate usability in mind. That remains the great attraction and power of their respective brands. Combined with this there is the fact that each guarantees greater reliability and security, both matters of paramount importance within the cloud computing world.

In the end, the choice you make will depend on the applications that are most important to your business and, in all probability, how much it will cost you. It’s fair to say that neither are a bad bet.