Microsoft is putting together a tool that'll make it much easier for Google G Suite customers 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 in development for the productivity suite (via ZDNet).
Targeting a release for Q2 of 2019, the tool will allow any current G Suite customer to migrate all of their email, calendars, and contacts to Office 365, making it easier to manage the switch. From Microsoft's description:
We've heard the feedback and we're excited to announce the new G Suite migration experience which will allow you to directly migrate email, calendar and contacts from Google G Suite to Office 365! Our highly secure solution ensures your data is directly migrated to Office 365, with no resting points along the way. We're also adding support for migrating mailbox in batches.
G Suite is Microsoft's biggest competitor when it comes to commercial productivity apps, so it makes sense that Microsoft would aim to make the transition as simple as possible for those looking to make a switch. Equally important is that the tool offers up a secure way to transition the data, something that Greg Taylor, Director of Exchange Marketing at Microsoft, elaborated on in a statement to Petri:
The primary reason we're doing this is to improve the end to end security of customer data. We want to make sure the customer's data itself is secured as it moves, that it doesn't make an unexpected staging stop along the way, and the authentication used to get to it is strong and trustworthy.
While Microsoft isn't aiming to launch the migration tool in full until some point in Q2 2019, it's possible we could see a preview version land in advance.
