Microsoft 365 courts disgruntled G Suite legacy free edition users with juicy discounts
We learned in January thatGoogle was killing its free G Suite legacy editionlater this year, leaving users with only a handful of options. Microsoft has clearly been watching the drama, as it’s now taking a rather bold marketing step in an attempt to entice G Suite users with its Office software offering.
Microsoft recently announcedthat it would be offering unhappy former G Suite customers a 60 percent discount on its Microsoft 365 platform. Current G Suite legacy free edition users will be able to take advantage of the bonus if they purchase a 12-month subscription of Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, or Business Premium. In addition, US-based users will get a year of free Business Assist support, which is Microsoft’s platform to help small businesses migrate and quickly get up to speed.
The subscription includes Microsoft Teams for businesses to meet, chat, call, and collaborate from anywhere, secure cloud storage, support for a custom domain name, and access to the suite of Office apps.
The development comes on the back of a recent move by Google that left many users annoyed. The company announced that it would end its free edition of legacy G Suite starting May 1. The change would force such users to either choose one of Google Workspace’s plans or set up a standard Gmail account and lose all their non-transferable digital purchases.
For users who fail to do any of the above, Google will automatically upgrade their subscriptions based on the features they already use — although they’ll need to have Google Workspace billing set up (at least Google’s not charging people without consent). Such customers have the possibility of a discount for their first year of paid service. However, those who fail to upgrade will have their accounts suspended — they’ll still get access to it for another 60 days, but many resources will stop working after that.
Microsoft has taken the whole fiasco as an opportunity to market its solutions, but we’ll have to wait and see how that pans out. Google has not issued any response on the matter, though, so that might be worth watching out for.
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