If you’re interested in saving a few cash for your business and getting a potentially easier-to-use software bundle, Google says you can do so on its Apps for Work inquiry page here. The decision stems from Google’s view of the stumbling blocks preventing businesses from trying out new vendors- customer business agreements and transitioning to a new platform.
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Google’s free trial offer might gain a few traction, but will likely “not have material impact” on Microsoft, its biggest enterprise competitor, Ross MacMillan, Microsoft analyst with RBC Capital Markets, told Reuters.
Google (GOOG) has fired the first shot in the war to win the hearts and minds of application productivity suite users with a limited-time offer.
The company also announced new and enhanced Office 365 services built for team productivity. Greg Meyers, Motorola Solutions’ CIO reportedly claims that it takes much less time to have ten people develop a Google Slide than it did (as compared to) emailing around different versions of a PowerPoint. A recent report from Bitglass found that Microsoft Office had overtaken Google Docs in adoption in the cloud for enterprises, with market shares of 25.2 percent and 22.8 percent, respectively. If you desert Microsoft, Google will give you free use of Google Apps for Work, which usually costs between $5 and $10 per user each month.
Still, Google’s mission is at odds with Microsoft’s, whose corporate mandate is to help people be more productive anywhere.
The only catch with this offer is that the qualifying companies have to promise that once the EA is up, you’ll use Google Apps for Work for a year at its standard price of $5/user/month for just the productivity tools, or $10/user/month for unlimited storage. When they have fulfilled their commitments, they can pay on a month-to-month basis, and feel free switch away from Google Apps for Work if they so choose.
Quarter of Microsoft’s revenue comes from Office software sales including subscriptions to Office 365 and that’s what Google is eyeing.
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According to a Google blog post, the company will cover the fees associated with Google Apps for Work until the customer’s existing contract runs out. “We’ll even chip in on a few of the deployment costs and set you up for success with one of our Google for Work Partners”. Google has said that it will wave off the pricing for the duration of the customers’ existing contracts with Microsoft or any other supplier.
