Microsoft tempts G Suite customers with 60% discount
- Reference: 1644602585
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/02/11/microsoft_365_offer/
- Source link:
The offer only applies to a Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, or Business Premium subscription.
It's all a far cry from the previous decade, where Microsoft worried there was a danger of [2]losing out to Google in the cloud applications game. Since then, the Windows giant has cashed in with its Microsoft 365 subscription model and is confident enough to make a move on customers jumpy about a forced move to paid Google subscriptions with an offer of its own.
[3]
As for what Google is up to, on 1 May it plans to begin automatically upgrading users to a Google Workspace subscription "based on the features you currently use."
[4]
[5]
Users must then set up billing before 1 July or face the suspension of their account. After 60 days in suspension, access to core services such as Gmail, Calendar and Meet will be pulled until a valid form of payment is provided.
Microsoft's offer ends on 2 August, and the company has additionally promised "the help you need to make the move." That'll be a year of free support from Business Assist for Microsoft 365, one feature of which is "personalized help moving all your current files (email, storage, documents, and communication) to Microsoft 365."
[6]
All of Microsoft's plans include what the company calls "business-class email" (assuming its [7]servers stay upright ), 1TB of cloud storage, and web and mobile versions of its Office apps. The Standard and Premium tiers also include the familiar desktop versions of those all-important productivity tools.
[8]Users sound off as new 100TB-to-share Google Workspace for Education storage limits near
[9]Google sours on legacy G Suite freeloaders, demands fee or flee
[10]Microsoft adds Azure AD Join to Windows 365 Cloud PC
[11]Update 'designed to improve user experience' takes down the Microsoft 365 Admin Portal
"When it comes to security, reliability, performance, and support, we've got you covered," said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, whose [12]Admin Portal fell over earlier this month .
It's not a bad deal, although G Suite users could stick with Google if they're willing to wait and see. In the company's [13]posting on the matter , it promised there would be a way "to move your non-Google Workspace paid content and most of your data to a no-cost option," although the advertising giant has yet to disclose what form that would take.
It is also offering its own "region-based discounts on Business editions starting at 50 per cent for the first 12 months after July 1, 2022."
The Register asked Google if it had a specific response to Redmond's offer or might consider pushing back the switchover date, but we haven't heard back. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2022/02/10/a-special-offer-for-small-businesses-using-googles-legacy-g-suite/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2013/07/15/microsoft_office365_versus_google/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/storage&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Ygbqmp3HhWPIDxmo4vsGFwAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/storage&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ygbqmp3HhWPIDxmo4vsGFwAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/storage&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Ygbqmp3HhWPIDxmo4vsGFwAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/storage&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ygbqmp3HhWPIDxmo4vsGFwAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/03/ms365_portal_down/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/10/google_workspace_storage_policy/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/20/google_sours_on_g_suite/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/10/cloud_pc_azure_ad_join/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/03/ms365_portal_down/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/03/ms365_portal_down/
[13] https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Google's Foot Gun
Don't think there is much risk here, I mean most of those tech folks who bought into the google cloud stuff or office 365 stuff have already tried/or succeeded in pushing others to use the service, the momentum is already going they don't need your help anymore. Pay up, or get out.
(have self hosted email/web/dns since ~1997)
Re: Google somehow finds it prudent to give all of those folks the boot.
Google is shooting at their own foot with this one.
It's ok if it is a bullet-proof boot.
I am not a fan of google in any way but have 3 paid accounts for personal and business use. I want to be paid for my work so will pay for a working service. Microsoft on the other hand, seem to be hell bent on getting rid of me as a paying customer. ( Yes, I have PC's running Windows os have paid for the operating system.)
I run several online meeting services on my systems, including Zoom, ring central, google and Teams.
Considering that Teams is provided by the manufacturer of the OS I find it impossible to believe that they have not been paid a bonus for sabotaging it.
Each and every time I need to use it results in a number of reboots, failed log ins, requests to open a one drive account, failure to find that account and random crash during use. Up until the last month it took an average of one hour to get the thing running and when it did I could heat my whole house with the heat coming out of the laptop fan. ( I am not an IT tech but do have a reasonable idea of what I am doing.)
Finally lost it and installed it on a cheap Huawei phone, took about 20 seconds to download and install and let me use it immediately with no crashes , stuttering or indeed any issue. I would happily and gladly pay for this because after all this is what I use to make a living. I just can not see the logic of a program running on an alien system a million times better than on it's own native OS and for free.
Google may be a tax dodging parasite in some parts of the world and may be a greedy blood sucking entity but at least they, along with Android, allow me to do what I need while Microsoft are doing their best to fuck up every single aspect of my use of a PC.
If the whole clusterfuck of a company died tomorrow it would do the world a favour.
Google's Foot Gun
Google is shooting at their own foot with this one. There are countless of thousands of high-tech enthusiasts using the free G Suite to host email with their vanity domains. Google somehow finds it prudent to give all of those folks (most of them IT professionals) the boot. It's not going to end well for their relationship with the professional IT world.
Personally, this will lead to me leaving GMail (and Google services in general) altogether. You don't want unfettered access to my personal emails any longer? Fine.