With so many office products out there today, you may be wondering which one is best for you. Today, we are going to be looking at 3 major office products from Apple, Google, and Microsoft, to figure out which is best for your home or business. Some of them offer free features including cloud storage options, and others are very expensive. Find out which suits you best.

iWork

iWork is an office suite by Apple that is exclusive to Mac computers and includes Pages (word processor), Keynote (presentation), and Numbers (spreadsheet). These officeheir Microsoft counterparts, while making features easier to access and utilize for faster results. There is also iWork for iCloud integrated into each program, which products are free if you buy a new Mac computer running OS X Mavericks, otherwise each program will cost you $19.99. This same offer applies to a new iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad tablet using iOS 7.All of the programs in iWork function very similarly to tmeans you can access your free 5 GB of storage from any computer, tablet, smartphone, and even on certain web browsers. While iWork is great for student and home users who just want a user-friendly set of office products, it lacks essential business programs and options so business IT departments would still be better off choosing a more complete suite of office products like Microsoft Office for their company.

Microsoft Office 2013

Unlike iWork, Microsoft Office has a larger range of programs that includes; Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Publisher. Along with the usual range of buying options, Microsoft also released an Office 365 subscription that includes all 7 programs and 20GB storage on SkyDrive for $99.99 per year.

With the addition of SkyDrive, users can take advantage of 7 GB of free storage to store their documents and photos and access them through the web, as well as an app available for Android and Apple devices. Office 2013 has updated their user interface to match the style of Windows 8 and have made certain actions easier to perform, but beyond that not much has changed from Office 2010. One feature that’s a welcomed change is being able to sign in to your account and resume working with your settings intact. This feature would be great for employees to have access to all of their customized office products wherever they are. Along with the wide range of customized options, Microsoft Office 2013 is great for businesses and users who want a level of control that is above the rest.

Google Drive

Formally known as Google Docs, Google Drive has become a free set of office products that allows Google account users to create, edit, comment, and upload documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on various devices ranging from phones to tablets to computers. Normal users are given 15 GB of storage for free, while 30 GB is given to businesses. Although the features of these office products are limited, there is a wide range of formats that can be viewed and has tons of usability options. For example, Google Drive allows you to scan documents, receipts and letters and then search its contents. Drive is also offline compatible so you can view your documents no matter where you are from just about every device.

Google Drive doesn’t have the best office products, but the amount of free storage along with a large list of compatible formats makes it a great addition to any Business IT department who’s looking for a great way to extend their companies cloud storage capacity. I would even recommend Google Drive to anyone who wants a basic office suite that gives access to the power of cloud storage for no charge, though you may need some IT services if you ever have any issues.

Which ever office suite you prefer we can set you up to run your business IT the way you like. Check out our Business IT Support section for more business services.