Comprehensive software reviews to make better IT decisions
Google’s G-Suite Surpasses 2 Billion Active Monthly Users
General Manager and Vice President of G Suite Javier Soltero has claimed that two billion active monthly users now use G Suite, Google’s office productivity suite. G Suite’s offerings include Gmail, Hangouts, Docs, and Drive.
The figure positions G Suite as the main competitor to Microsoft’s equivalent productivity suite, Office 365. However, Office 365 is still the commercial market leader, with over 200 million active monthly users.
Source: SoftwareReviews Microsoft OneDrive for Business Scorecard. Accessed March 25, 2020
Our Take
Given that Google reported Gmail alone had 1.5 billion users in 2018, it is difficult to know how much of a grain of salt we should take when interpreting Soltero’s claim. It is not clear how many of these two billion users are free users of Gmail versus paid users of the whole suite.
Indeed, commercially, G Suite still falls short of the marketspace that Microsoft holds with Office 365. Whereas G Suite reported having four million business users in 2018, Office 365 has 30 times that amount at 120 million business users.
Either way, Info-Tech’s recommendations are to not mix and match these two rivals’ offerings. Rationalizing your collaboration tools enhances productivity by reducing end-user confusion for which app to use when. Furthermore, this has extra security benefits, with IT security professionals only needing to worry about securing the end points of one collaboration platform.