Microsoft is building a tool that will make it easier for Google G Suite users to migrate to Office 365. In an update to its Office 365 roadmap, Microsoft last week added “Google G Suite to Office 365 migration” to the list of features it has developed for the productivity suite (via ZDNet).
Targeting a Q2 2019 release, the tool will allow any G Suite user to migrate all their emails, calendars, and contacts to Office 365, making the transition easier. According to Microsoft's description:
We've listened to your feedback and are excited to announce the new G Suite migration experience, which will allow you to directly migrate your email, calendar, and contacts from Google G Suite to Office 365! Our highly secure solution ensures that your data is migrated directly to Office 365. We're also adding support for mailbox migration in batches.
G Suite is Microsoft's biggest competitor in business productivity apps, so it makes sense that Microsoft would want to make the transition as simple as possible for those looking to make the switch. Equally important, the tool offers a secure way to migrate data, as Greg Taylor, Director of Exchange Marketing at Microsoft, emphasized in a statement to Petri:
The primary reason we do this is to improve the security of customer data. We want to make sure that the customer data itself is secured in transit, that it doesn't stop anywhere along the way, and that the authentication used to access it is strong and reliable.
While Microsoft isn't looking to launch the migration tool in its full version until sometime in Q2 2019, it's likely we'll see a preview of it sooner rather than later.
