Apple iCloud vs. Microsoft 365 Business Premium

Our growing organization uses about 95% Apple hardware. The Apple iCloud functionality across our organization ensures interfaces and synchronization that makes information workflow seamless. The cost structure and limited AI functionality keeps us dependent on products like Microsoft and Google and unable to put all of our cloud "eggs" into the Apple basket.

Incentivized

Microsoft 365 Business Premium is well suited to any size organization and is a must-have for business purposes. It is a vital component for the majority of work software needs, as the Microsoft 365 Business Premium package has apps to handle needs that I didn't know we had. It is a great way to provide the required software programs to teams, especially those that work remotely due to the great sharing capabilities built into it. Furthermore, the nonprofit program provided our small nonprofit with vital components for our remote work, while allowing us to keep our donated funds going directly to our mission.

Incentivized

• Syncing files, appointments, Notes and contacts. If I'm away from home, and set an appointment using my phone, that appointment automatically updates real time to my home laptop and vice-versa.
• It stores files (e.g photos) nicely
• Once it's set up, it's fairly easy to use.

Incentivized

• Work in sync in different departments.
• Being able to work from any device or computer. It is a very noble tool in different devices.
• The work between the different programs (Word, Excel, Notes) that it offers is extremely light and good.

Incentivized

• Customization - iCloud is great at the stuff it does well. But it lacks features that some competitors (in Google Drive or Dropbox) do really well. API support for third-party apps is really great for some other people.
• Remote use - Managing or accessing information from iCloud while not on one of your logged-in apple devices can sometimes be an issue. From a work computer for example. It doable, but the experience is much less user-friendly.
• Ability to edit documents on the cloud similar to google docs or some other competitors

Incentivized

• adding calendar invitations is not straight forward
• copying folders from SharePoint libraries to an external drive should not be relying on the available space on the C drive
• administering mailboxes for our company is convoluted forcing me to hunt for settings and options
• lack of flexibility on the location of the OST and PST files
• the new version should not do away with PST files but rather improve their reliability.
• the PST internal structure is inefficient. the PST file should be able to shrink automatically when one delete emails.

Incentivized

It's so seamless that I can't imagine another product doing a better job synchronizing all of my devices. I simply do not think about it at all. Everything happens behind the scenes and I'm confident that Apple keeps my data safe and secure. I'm a happy customer as far as this is concerned. I have not had a bad experience with this service.

Incentivized

It is part of the organisation now. It provides and rich feature set and requires a relatively low amount of administration.

While it may be great to use with other Apple products, I find it's an absolutist-style workflow to be debilitating and to lead to many problems. When you sign into the cloud, it completely takes over your device in many ways that you don't notice at first until there is a problem.

Incentivized

The basic apps are straightforward and easy to use, especially since they have been around so long. I'm referring to the basic apps like Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, etc. Other features such as Microsoft Teams and Sharepoint Sites, Sharepoint Lists, Sharepoint Groups, etc. all require a higher level of knowledge to both implement and use properly

Incentivized

Occasionally, large files that haven't yet been synced require a few minutes to pull down but I've rarely noticed delays. It does a good job of keeping data cached on my local machines while updating them with changes from other machines transparently.

Incentivized

In the last 5 years, Microsoft has come a long way. The performance of the products has become more and more user-friendly and it seems that the feedback provided by the user community is being listened to and worked on. The processes are very fast and seamless. There are negligible errors and doesn't slow the systems down.

Incentivized

Apple customer service is fantastic. iCloud is built with Apple in mind and its design is extremely intuitive and user-friendly. Additionally, whenever our team has encountered issues, the speed of Apple support has been more than timely in addressing our issues and solving our request. We have encountered relatively few issues in my time with the platform and this only improves our overall score for those who keep the platform stable.

Incentivized

As mentioned elsewhere in the review, Microsoft has historically paid attention to community feedback and issues, but timeliness can improve, and so can the addressing of long-standing issues about which many users have said "I have this issue too!" but no official solution exists. For issues that do have a solution, however, the solution is usually not difficult to find, and the explanation of features on Microsoft's website can mitigate many problems.

Incentivized

Google Drive is similar to Apple iCloud, but since I prefer Apple products and have operated within the Apple ecosystem for many years, I use iCloud. Some clients who don't use Apple share documents with me in Google Drive so I have experience with the product, but I prefer iCloud. I do think photos syncing is superior in iCloud.

Incentivized

Before migrating to Microsoft 365 Business Premium, we possessed an in-house exchange server. Therefore, it was difficult for us to look at alternatives to Microsoft for a solution – we did look at the Google Suite of products, but the transition for us seemed less cumbersome to stay with Microsoft from a staff and administrative perspective. While the G Suite does offer us many outstanding products and services, we also didn’t feel that Gmail is up-to-par as a corporate solution the way Exchange/Outlook/OWA are – this alone was also a driving force for our end-users, as there was minimal transition for them to move from an on-premise solution to an off-premise solution. The additional features of SharePoint, Teams, Project, and so many other applications within Microsoft 365 also helped us make a strong case to stay with Microsoft and expand what we were using. The end-user and mobile protections of InTune have also put us at ease when issuing laptops and mobile phones to an almost fully-remote end-user base.

Incentivized

• Apple's iCloud service can run very slow in countries where they aren't very focussed, like India.
• Apple did not back up videos over the cloud for a long time and needed manual sync. You will see similar issues like not allowing mobile data for some tasks.

Incentivized

• We can now keep work going from anywhere. It doesn't matter if we are on a job site or sitting in the office or working from home for a day or two we don't have to miss a beat.
• It has unified how we store information so that everything isn't stored on individual computers

Incentivized