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G Suite Is Now Google Workspace: What’s The Difference Between Them?
google suite vs google workspace - what is the difference between google workspace and g suite
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Microsoft and Google recently renamed their leading SaaS platforms, within weeks of each other. Office 365 is now Microsoft 365 and G Suite (of Google Apps fame) is now Google Workspace. It ties in with a paradigm shift to refocus on the employee working-from-home. A response to the industry-wide move to the remote or hybrid workforce. As Javier Soltero, VP and GM of Google Workspace says, “Work is no longer a physical place we go to, and interactions that used to take place in person are being rapidly digitized. It represents a significant opportunity to help people succeed in this highly distributed and increasingly digitized world”. The newly banded Google Workspace promises to enhance and remote-tune the incredibly productive and collaborative mechanisms of its former self. Let’s examine the rationale and the impact of the renaming of G Suite to Google Workspace with a detailed Google Workspace Vs G Suite comparison.

G Suite Renamed As Google Workspace

The en-masse shift to remote has disrupted the way we work. Central to it has been a surge in the adoption of cloud-based SaaS platforms to support employees working from home. G Suite crossed six million paying customers. However, G Suite functionally and visually stayed the same. Its applications and integrations catering predominantly to a work-from-office user; whose requirements differ from a work-from-home user. The shift to the remote workforce has disrupted business workflows and communication methods. Organizations have turned to flexible, dynamic, and device-agnostic collaboration frameworks, technologies, and applications. This name change reflects Google’s response to the needs of this new normal. One that is here to stay. 

Google Workspace Caters to the New Normal – The Remote Worker

While Gmail and Google Drive are hugely popular amongst consumers, they have yet to break Microsoft’s ground in the business world. Microsoft with an 87.6% share in 2019, leads the email and document authoring software market, according to Gartner. Google has an 11.5% share, up from 10.5% in 2018. With Google Workspace, Google is making it clear that it’s here to do business with the employee of today who demands a “home for work”. As Soltero puts it, “Employers and workers want more flexible ways of working, and delivering on this requires the right technology”. Google Workspace includes all of G Suite’s productivity apps – Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Meet. However, integration and interaction between them are tighter and more fluid to address the multi-device, multi-channel remote employee.

Google Workspace Vs G Suite: What are the Differences Between G Suite and Google Workspace

When comparing Google Workspace Vs G Suite, we see that Google Workspace introduces these enhancements:

  • Integrated User Experience to help distributed teams collaborate more effectively and power new digital customer experiences. Google Workspace collates chat, email, voice/video calling, content management, and collaboration into one unified experience to facilitate seamless channel-switching. For example, in Docs, Sheets, and Slides, you can preview a linked file. It also supports document creation and collaboration on-the-fly in Chat itself.
  • New Pricing that reflects Google Workspace’s product vision and its openness to engage with organizations of various sizes and requirements. Google Workspace’s Business Starter ($6 per user per month) and Business Standard  ($12 per user per month) are similar to G Suite’s Basic and Business plans. To address the security vulnerabilities of remote work, there is Google Workspace Business Plus  ($18 per user per month) with added security features. There also are Google Workspace Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus plans, the pricing for which is not published.
  • Updates to security and privacy: Google Workspace comes with the ability to create flexible and scalable work spaces that are device or browser agnostic. New features have been added to Meet and Chat to facilitate safe communication. Audit logs and data protection insights give admins increased visibility and control for their organizations.

For a detailed comparison of the various Google Workspace options, refer to the table here.

G Suite and Google Workspace – Securing SaaS Data Is A Must

While Google Workspace is an exceptionally secure platform, it cannot protect you from data loss or corruption at your end. There is no assured method to recover data lost due to human error, malware, sync errors, and/or malicious intent. So much so that Google recommends third-party backup as a surefire way for point-in-time recovery. Native options like Trash and Vault are time-bound and tedious. Moreover, with the new Google Workspace, only the Business Plus plan includes Google Vault. It is available as a paid add-on for the Business Starter and Business Standard Plans at approximately $5 per user, per month as an add-on price. Why pay almost double for a tool meant for archival? One which does not offer easy and/or unlimited point-in-time recovery, that is essential for easy disaster recovery and seamless business continuity. A must for the organization that has all its business-critical data on G Suite – particularly a remote one. Read our free ebook on Why enterprises need SaaS backup

CloudAlly’s backup solutions comprehensively protect Google Workspace with automated backup and easy recovery from any point-in-time. All plans include unlimited storage on AWS servers. Google Workspace backup protects Mail, Shared Drives (Shared Drives (formerly Team Drive), Calendars, Contacts, Tasks, and Metadata backup. Our solutions are stringently secure and compliant (ISO 27001, HIPAA and GDPR compliant, support for MFA/2FA and OAuth, data encryption in-transit and at rest, and more). And our exceptional tier-1, multi-channel Customer Support is a call, phone, chat, email, or ticket away.

Don’t Risk Google Workspace data loss. Secure it with SaaS backup.

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