Why is Office 365 still so slow?

[Philip Tsang]

After almost 10 years of development, the Office web apps are still quite slow compared with Google Suite apps:

• Office 365: typically takes 3-4 seconds to load and render a document; Google Suite: typically under 1-2 seconds
• Office 365: even for a minor update to a word/excel/ppt file, it takes 7-8 seconds for the document to be saved in the cloud; Google Suite: usually within 3 seconds.
• OneDrive: navigating through folders is not as fast as Google Drive (which is almost as responsive as browsing local files in File Explorer)

I have been using Office web apps since 2013. The speed has improved in recent years. But it is still much slower than its rivals.

Even the desktop Office apps are not as fast Google Suite when opening a document from OneDrive. It typically takes over 5 seconds to properly load a document which is not available in the local drive.

OneNote sometimes needs ridiculously long time to synchronize.

Even for modern apps like Teams, there are occasional lagging problems (e.g. updating the newest chat messages).

Being the world's 2nd leader in cloud computing, Microsoft has already built huge infrastructure all over the world. So the problem should be on the software side instead of the hardware side.

Is Microsoft lack of technically capable people?

 

[me just saying]

IMO, if google suite had the number of users microsoft has, it would be much slower too. when you are talking speed, you must consider the number of users on the server.

 

[Philip Tsang]

I doubt whether the number of active users of Google Suite is much less than Office 365 when you consider both paid (mainly commercial) and non-paid (mainly consumer) users. MANY younger generations and schools are using Google Suite apps. MANY people are using Google Form everyday (even Office 365 users use it instead of Microsoft Form).

Even if what you said is true (Office 365 active users >> Google Suite), then Microsoft should add even more servers to its cloud infrastructure to meet the huge demand, right?

It's 2020 now but the relatively slow response time of Office 365 apps is somewhat disappointing.

 

[tgp]

IMO, if google suite had the number of users microsoft has, it would be much slower too. when you are talking speed, you must consider the number of users on the server.

A comparison with G Suite is not applicable. The capacity of Microsoft's infrastructure needs to meet the demand. Anyway, we don't know if capacity is the issue. It was a speculation.

 

[spicypadthai]

If you have the choice and your observed performance is a dealbreaker, then simply use Google Suite. If not, maybe b/c your company has standardized on Office, then this isn't the best place to get answers. While there are many intelligent folks here who can and will chime in with opinions, and frequently with facts, I doubt you'll be satisfied. You should start with your IT and then escalate it to MS support.

 

[me just saying]

A comparison with G Suite is not applicable. The capacity of Microsoft's infrastructure needs to meet the demand. Anyway, we don't know if capacity is the issue. It was a speculation.

anything said here is speculation. if you want absolute fact, contact microsoft and ask them.

 

[Philip Tsang]

I was not asking for opinion whether my company should continue using Office 365 or switch to Google Suite.

As stated in the subject of my post, I was asking why.

 

[Philip Tsang]

They will never provide absolute fact.

Reasonable speculation based on observation among a variety of users makes sense, right?

 

[tgp]

anything said here is speculation. if you want absolute fact, contact microsoft and ask them.

Ha, I used to work for a Microsoft VAR. I worked very closely with them. I can assure you that any answer you get from them will be speculation! They'd probably tell you:

1. To get a new (faster) computer
2. To get faster internet
3. Both

 

[me just saying]

Ha, I used to work for a Microsoft VAR. I worked very closely with them. I can assure you that any answer you get from them will be speculation! They'd probably tell you:

1. To get a new (faster) computer
2. To get faster internet
3. Both

I know that, that info is most likely confidential anyway. I only mentioned it because they are the only ones who can answer the question

 

[Tsang Fai]

These answers are irrelevant. The slow response time of Office 365 web apps is mainly due to the capacity of the cloud. I use an i7 computer, with 16GB RAM, and 100MB broadband connection. So I don't think the bottleneck is on my side.