For me, the benefits of Google’s software are:
- Free – this is a massive selling point for me. Whilst many productivity applications / software products might start off free, they are either ad-supported (meaning you get ads in the application as you use it unless you pay for a non ad-supported version) or they reserve their best tools for the paid version.
Google doesn’t show ads in any of the software products that I use. And whilst that might change in the future, at the moment I’m very happy not seeing any ads at all.
- Ongoing support – although they’re free, all the Google products I use have online support available, either through Help Articles or through volunteer forums. Any time I have a question I can use one of these resources to find an answer.
- Simplicity – Google products are simple, lightweight solutions that don’t get in the way of actually doing my work. Many of the applications and products that I’ve tried are so powerful I ended up spending more time working out how to use the product than doing the work.
- Convenience – Google products can sync across all your devices (mobile, tablet and desktop) with minimal effort on your part. So you can access your data, documents, and calendar no matter where you are or what device you are using. Because they are tied to your Google account, you can even log into your account on someone else’s computer and access your information without any problems.
- Connectivity – you might not always be connected to the Internet but with the majority of the Google products I use, you can still get access to your information.
- Device agnostic – you can use these products on smartphones running Android / iOS / Windows operating systems; on a PC or a Mac and via any type of Internet browser. Because Google owns Android, its products do work best on an Android phone but they do offer apps for iPhones and Windows as well.
- Search functionality – not surprisingly, the search feature in each of these products is excellent. My business productivity relies heavily on being able to find what I want, when I want it, and a good search function is vital.
