Why Microsoft will beat Google in the enterprise cloud war

As Google and Microsoft battle for enterprise cloud customers, each company's natural strengths (and weaknesses) become more apparent. Microsoft, for example, is winning over large enterprises that already have massive workforces on Office 365. Google for Work, meanwhile, continues to be popular among small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs), particularly organizations that don't have dedicated IT staffs and aren't burdened by legacy technologies that require ongoing support.

The pendulum started to slowly swing back in Microsoft's favor after it released Office 365 in 2013 and finally embraced the cloud, according to TJ Keitt, a senior analyst with Forrester Research. It is difficult to accurately compare the two companies' user numbers because neither Microsoft nor Google provide details on user bases, or the sizes of the companies they serve, but Keitt suggests Microsoft is on the winning end of the recent shift.

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