Google Drive Review

Google
Product:
Vendor:
Founded:
Headquarters:
Google Drive
Google
1998
Mountain View, CA
Ownership:
Customers:
Deployment Model:
Free Trial:
Public
Over 5 million
Cloud
Yes
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Google Drive At A Glance

Good: Affordable and flexible pricing plan, accessible anytime and anywhere, strong cloud security features.
Bad: Switching between folders tends to be confusing, some formatting issues when uploading files.
Bottom Line: Easy-to-use solution that improves productivity and collaboration.

Product Overview

Google Drive is part of the rebranded Google Workspace, a product suite that focuses on collaboration, communication, and storage. Some of the Google Workspace apps include Gmail, Meet and Calendar. For the purpose of this review, we will focus on Google Drive and its apps (i.e. Docs, Sheets, Slides) – but note that businesses will need to purchase Google Workspace in order to use Google Drive.

Google Drive is a cloud-based file storage platform and offers the ability to collaborate across devices and with other users. Administrations can set permissions on who can access, edit, and share files. Businesses can cut costs since Google Drive doesn’t require additional software purchases.

Features

Users can choose from many different apps for their business needs, such as Docs, Sheets and Slides. Google Drive allows users to upload files, as well as create, edit and comment on them. They can share files using access permissions (e.g., view only, edit), and files are accessible in “My Drive,” “Shared with Me,” or “Recent” view layouts. It can also be sorted by date, owner, last modified or file size.

Google Drive also integrates with other apps, such as Facebook, Adobe eSignature, Dropbox, Salesforce, Slack and Microsoft Office. It also supports over 100 file types.

Users can search and retrieve specific files by utilizing the Google Search bar, and they can also add “star” to the file to find it easily. Google also has a Priority features, an AI functionality that can predict what files the user is looking for and provides relevant suggestions, and there’s the Explore feature that uses machine learning to find specific content based on a user’s question.

Other features include:

  • Offline access
  • The ability to stream Drive files from the cloud to a Mac or PC
  • Shared Drives
  • Data loss prevention
  • Team Drive (give employees co-owner status to a particular file)
  • Vault (access for administrators to manage Google Drive data)

Target Market

Google Workspace targets organizations of all sizes and industries including manufacturing, retail, education, and government, to name a few. We’ve listed ten of its customers below:

  • All Recipes
  • Design Within Reach
  • Hewlett-Packard
  • Jaguar
  • Kaplan
  • Land Rover
  • Ocado
  • Shaw Floors
  • Uber
  • The Weather Company

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Implementation/Integration

For companies that need to migrate their information from another program (i.e., Microsoft Outlook), Google has an eight-step implementation process that includes:

  • Free trial period
  • Verify company domain information
  • Adding user accounts
  • Transfer email accounts from legacy program to Gmail
  • User training
  • Set up mobile devices
  • Importing data (i.e. calendar and contacts)
  • Google Workspace is ready to use (users can get new features/updates automatically)

Customer Service & Support

Users can access support for Google Drive in these following ways:

  • The Help Center provides resources on common Google Drive topics. There is also a troubleshooting section for solution on common issues.
  • There is a product forum where users can receive help from other Google Drive users and Google Drive staff.
  • Users that have administrator privileges (typically a company’s IT staff) can contact Google Apps support by phone or email.

Pricing

Google Workspace offers a free 14-day trial period. After that, there are four pricing plans to choose from:

  • Business Starter ($6 per user, per month) – This plan covers business custom email addresses, calendar, 30 GB of Drive storage, video and voice conferencing (up to 100 attendees can participate in video meetings), security and management controls, and 24/7 phone, online and email support.
  • Business Standard ($12 per user, per month) – In addition to the features covered in the Basic Starter plan, organizations will receive up to 2 TB of storage, video recording and up to 150 attendees can participate in video meetings.
  • Business Plus ($18 per user, per month) – This plan includes up to 5 TB of storage, meeting attendance tracking, up to 250 participants in video meetings, archive and retention policies for emails and chats, eDiscovery and advanced endpoint management.
  • Enterprise (available by quote only) – The Enterprise plan includes all features in the other plans, plus enhanced support, unlimited storage, noise cancellation and in-domain live streaming within meetings and enterprise endpoint management.

Shortcomings

Switching between folders in Google Drive tends to be confusing especially if users have access to not only their own folders, but other people’s folders too.

Also, users have reported formatting issues when uploading documents or spreadsheets into Drive.

Screenshots

Google Screenshot 1
Google Screenshot 2
Google Screenshot 3

About

Google got its start as a search engine in 1998 (it initially began as a research project for two Stanford University students.) It has experienced tremendous growth in the number of employees and services offered over the years, eventually becoming a publicly-traded company in 2004. Some of its popular services include: Google News (launched in 2002), Gmail, (launched in 2004), and Google Maps (launched in 2005).

Google offers its Business Solutions for companies, such as My Business, Google AdWords, Google Analytics, Google AdSense, and Google Apps for Work.

Headquartered in Mountain View, CA, Google has over 70 offices in 40 countries worldwide.

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