Speaking to Axios about the landmark, G Suite chief Javier Soltero said he has been eager to promote G Suite’s unique features compared to Microsoft Office. He points to deep integration with search and built-in collaboration tools as those features. Speaking of the 2 billion active users, Soltero says: “That’s a staggering number. … These products have incredible reach. Changing the way people work is something we are uniquely positioned to do.” Soltero is a former Microsoft employee. He left Redmond to lead G Suite as Google looks to compete with Office. His departure from Microsoft was something of a surprise. In May 2018, Soltero moved to head up Microsoft’s Cortana voice assistant. By November of the same year he had left the company entirely.
Microsoft Office
Microsoft does not offer regular updates on its Office userbase. Back at Build 2016, the company said 1.2 billion people were using Office each month and spending on average 3-4 hours per day on the suite. Now Google has offered its active users, we expect Microsoft to release similar information soon. It is likely Office is also hovering around 2 billion users. Importantly, many of Google’s G Suite applications are free to use, where as Office does much better with paid and enterprise accounts. G Suite applications include:
Calendar Gmail Hangouts Chat Hangouts Meet Drive Sheets Docs Forms Slides Keep Sites Apps Scripts
Currents
