IDG Contributor Network: While Microsoft stacks the cloud, Google readies its next play

All the traditional enterprise system vendors (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, IBM) have a cloud strategy and product offerings. But not all vendors have the same vision. Recently, Google and Microsoft announced enterprise-focused offerings to lure clients to their cloud-based suites. Google and Microsoft will be fierce competitors in this space, but coming from differing backgrounds, they have divergent offerings.

Google for its part has always been a massive cloud player. But its focus on the consumer -- even as it tried to lure businesses over the past couple of years to its web-based Office competing product, G-Suite, and its collaboration suite, Hangouts -- has been limited in success. This is primarily due to the fact that its enterprise-focused features and functions were modest at best, and the appeal for its solution was most notable in SMB. And Google lacked a true client app, relying instead on Chromebooks as a delivery mechanism.

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