When I got the phone I told myself that I was going to give the Google services a try, and not just for a few minutes, but really try them out. I also said that I'd share the results on Facebook. That didn't turn out so well, probably because I really don't care all that much for social media.
Without further ado, here's my comparisons for the services that I've used.
Gmail vs Outlook.com
I've had a Gmail account for years. I didn't use it a ton, but I've had it. It's really difficult to change your email address, so this is one of those things that I made an effort to use more, but really couldn't make the switch completely. That said, I really like the automatic categorization that it applies to each email (Social and Promotions are the defaults, at least with my account). Outlook.com kinda has this, but it's baked into the mail app in Windows 8, which works well enough, but it's not strictly web. The spam filter seems to be a bit more aggressive, but it's hard to tell if it's getting many false positives given that my main address isn't with Gmail.
I don't like that some things are so hard to find with Gmail though. It took me forever to find where my contacts were. I still don't understand what I'd want to use the archive feature for, but it's there if I ever do figure it out.
As far as integrating with my phone (which is what really prompted this experiment), they both work about equally. Unsurprisingly, the Gmail app feels a bit more polished, but both function about equally. One thing that I don't care for with the email app is that it's the catch-all for all other email addresses, so I have to be mindful of which account I'm looking at or sending mail from, especially since my work email address (Microsoft Exchange) integrates here.
To be fair, I'd say that this is a bit of a tossup on which is better. I'll keep using Gmail, and will have to keep my Outlook.com account around. I don't mind managing a few different accounts, so this isn't really a big deal for me.
Google Drive vs Onedrive (was Skydrive)
This one is a bit of an unfair comparison since I've got all sorts of upgrades to my Onedrive because of my time at Microsoft. My Onedrive has over 160GB of storage available, compared to my Google Drive which only has 40GB. The free amount from Google is better at 15GB compared to 7GB on the current offer from Microsoft.
Google drive is kinda unique though in that pictures under 2048x2048 don't count toward your storage limit. This is because of the integration with Google+, and Microsoft doesn't have a competing offering in that realm.
I think the layout of Google Drive online is a little confusing, especially at first. I expected that pictures that I took with my camera would show up as downloadable via the Google Drive interface, like they are on my Onedrive. This isn't the case. If you want to download your photos, you have to do it through the Google+ interface.
As for the phone integration, Google wins here, but only because I didn't have to install anything else for it to work. The interfaces are both easy to use, and provide the same basic features, which is all I needed.
In all, I'll keep them both around since it gives me extra storage if I need it. I won't keep Onedrive on my phone though because there's no real need.
Google Play Store vs Microsoft Store (or whatever it's called)
This is a phone only comparison, and while everyone knows that there are tons more apps on the Play Store, many of them feel cheaply made. There are several junk apps on the Microsoft Store, but the really good ones seem to be much easier to find.I also prefer a dark background with light text, and I don't have any control over the color scheme for the Play Store on my phone.
This one goes to Microsoft.
Google Play Music All Access vs Xbox Music
I didn't know that Google had a music app like this, and happened to stumble on it one day on my phone. I can't compare web to web, because Xbox Music doesn't have a web interface.
I've had a paid Xbox Music account for several years now. I got it right after Windows Phone 7 was released because it integrated with my phone well. The Google Play Music All Access actually got me to cancel. Aside from the horrid name, I feel like it's a better service.
Xbox Music requires you to have their software installed on your PC, which means that you need Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 with the Desktop package installed, or download Zune onto your earlier OS. There's no option for Linux or Mac that I'm aware of. They do have an app on the Play Store, which really surprised me, and it worked well enough, but wasn't nearly as full featured as it was on my Windows Phone.
Google Music (as I've taken to calling it) has a web interface. I can listen anywhere that I have a web browser. Much simpler. From what I can tell there is no app available on the Windows Phone. The interface isn't too bad. You can mark music that you like with a thumbs up, add music to your personal collection and on the phone, also download it for offline listening.
Xbox music allows you to have 4 devices set up for non-streaming playback, and only allows you to remove two devices every 30 days. This really pissed me off because the one place that I don't have phone service is at my gym, the one place that I really want to be able to listen to music. I had four devices on my account already and couldn't remove them for several weeks after getting my phone. Google Music, on the other hand gives you 10 devices.
Google Music also has an app for Android. I haven't used it a ton since I mostly listen at work, but have used it some while at the gym. It's pretty average and the navigation can be somewhat confusing at first because they make a distinction between "My Library", "Music on My Device" and "All Music", and it's not always really obvious which mode you're in. Also, I haven't been able to figure out how to remove items from My Library.
The two complaints that I have about Google music are that 1) if I want to share my account with my kids, I have to set up my whole Google account on their phones, which means my Gmail and Google+ ends up accessible to them as well. This isn't any different than Xbox Music though. 2) I'd like to be able to sync a playlist to my phone. All of the music in the playlist, not just the list. As it is now, I have to go through each song and mark it for synchronizing. And what happens when the playlist changes (since it's a publicly available playlist)?
Google wins here, and they've won my money in this case.
Conclusion
From what I've seen the Google offerings have really come a long way. There are many things that I need to mess around with, but as for moving off of Microsoft properties, I don't think that it'll be too difficult to keep doing long term (aside from email, but that's just because it's a huge pain in the ass).
