Published · 4 min read
What they have in common before we get to the differences
Both give you professional email on your domain, cloud storage for every employee, shared files with permissions, video meetings, a shared calendar, two-step login and an admin panel where you add and remove staff. Both work well in Arabic and from a phone. Both are paid monthly per user.
So do not choose on one feature. Choose on what your team spends its day in.
Choose Microsoft 365 if your team lives in Word and Excel
Accounting, contracts and proposals in Saudi Arabia live in Excel and Word. If your team opens complex Excel files every day and exchanges Word files with government bodies and large customers, Microsoft 365 will be easier for them because the same programs are on their machines.
Outlook suits people who handle large volumes of email and calendar, and Teams has become the standard for meetings with large companies and government bodies. The basic business plan includes the Office programs on the device, which is what most offices need.
Choose Google Workspace if your team works from the browser
If your team is young, works from laptops and phones, shares and edits documents together at the same moment, and does not need advanced Excel, Google Workspace will be simpler and faster to adopt. Everyone knows Gmail and Drive from their personal accounts, and training is close to zero.
Google Meet works from any browser with nothing to install, and sharing from a phone is smooth. The basic plan is often slightly cheaper for the same storage.
Price, security and Arabic support
On the basic plans the price difference per user is small, and what changes the bill is the number of users and the storage. Work out the cost of a full year for your headcount before comparing features.
Security is equal if you switch on two-step login for everyone and remove the accounts of people who leave. The breaches we see in small businesses are caused by reused passwords and abandoned accounts, not by the platform.
Both support Arabic in the interface, email and documents. Word is slightly stronger at formatting long Arabic documents and right-to-left tables, which matters to anyone producing contracts and formal memos.
How to decide in ten minutes
- 1
Ask your team what they open first thing in the morning
Excel and Outlook? Microsoft 365. The browser and Gmail? Google Workspace.
- 2
Ask your biggest customers what they use
If their meetings are on Teams and their files are Office, matching them saves you daily friction.
- 3
Look at your machines
Old Windows machines with little memory do better with the browser. Modern machines get the most out of the full Office programs.
- 4
Pick one and commit
Switching between them after a year is expensive. A good decision today beats the perfect decision in two months.
When to call us
If you are moving from free email or from one platform to the other, the real risk is in the move, not the choice: mail that goes missing, a calendar that does not transfer, or a whole day without email. We move mailboxes and files with nothing lost, usually overnight, and set up two-step login before the team starts its first morning.
Common questions
Can Outlook be used with Google Workspace?
Yes, Outlook works with Google mail. But if the whole team wants Outlook and Excel, it is simpler to choose Microsoft 365 from the start rather than mixing the two.
Does all my data move across when switching?
Email, calendar, contacts and files move. What does not move exactly is some complex formatting in documents and the mail rules, which are set up again by hand.
What about the free email we use now?
An @gmail or @hotmail address for the company costs you customer trust and is hard to manage when an employee leaves. Moving to email on your own domain is one step on either platform, and we keep your old mail in full.
Related services
Choosing the platform, moving mail and files, setting permissions and two-step login are all part of Microsoft 365 support in Saudi Arabia. Anything to do with the machines and installing programs on them is handled by remote and onsite IT support in Madinah.