G Suite Takes a Big Step Forward Towards No Longer Needing Microsoft Office

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When it comes to productivity platforms, Microsoft has a significant advantage over its competitors, primarily Google, as it has a long history in this space as well as the largest userbase. While G Suite is significantly smaller than Office 365, Google is continuing to invest in its productivity platform and they are making it much easier to work with Microsoft documents.

Starting today, the company is enabling the functionality to let users comment directly on Microsoft Office files, PDFs, and images without having to convert them into Docs, Sheets or Slides. With this new feature, you no longer need other tools to interact with this type of content and this makes using Google Drive in corporate environments, a little bit easier.

While this type of feature has obviously been available with Microsoft’s own solution, with Google now offering this functionality, it removes one of the barriers to using Google Drive in an otherwise Microsoft environment. For those that are using G Suite, this is one less reason why they would need to also be a user of the Office suite if they are primarily using Docs, Sheets or Slides.

Microsoft is no stranger to the threat that Google is becoming in this space and are even offering free solutions to migrate from Google Drive to OneDrive for Business.

Google still has a long way to go to fully match the functionality of Office 365 and while they may never truly grab the size of the market that Office currently holds, they have proven that the platform is an alternative to Microsoft’s solutions. Specifically, for smaller organizations and startups, G Suite is quickly becoming the go-to solution while Office 365 is still the preferred option for larger companies.