Other Reasons to use Drive for Work
When most of our clients compare Google Apps for Work with Drive for Work, they focus on the two most visible differences:
- Drive for Work gives you unlimited Drive storage, instead of the 30GB per user for Gmail and Drive in Google Apps for Work.
- Drive for Work includes Google Apps Vault for email (and, in the future, document) archiving and e-discovery services.
While these differences are enough for many companies to step up to Drive for Work, some of the less visible differences may prove more valuable in the long term.
Expanded Reporting
Google Apps for Work offers a limited number of audit and admin reports that cover basic statistics about user accounts and activities. Drive for Work, already has an extended suite of admin and audit reports, giving you greater visibility into how various services are being used, including configurable audit reports for Drive.
Expanded APIs
Most companies will never program to the Google Apps Application Program Interfaces (APIs). Third party administration, security, and productivity applications, however, rely on these APIs to access and manage data in Google Apps. With Google’s commitment to expand the API suite for Drive for Work, third party applications, including BetterCloud, CloudLock, Backupify and others, will offer additional features and services with Drive for Work than they can with Apps for Work. As a customer, you get a more robust computing environment.
Granted, these additional capabilities alone may not, today, warrant the additional cost of Drive for Work. Yet, these features are indicative of a trend for broader features and investment in Drive for Work. If you need or want archiving and/or additional storage and are considering a la carte upgrades, consider the strategic impact of expanded reporting and APIs. They may just tip the scales in favor of Drive for Work.
