Microsoft offers a special discount to Google ‘legacy’ G Suite customers
At the beginning of 2022, Google announced that it plans to make free “legacy” G Suite accounts pay for a subscription by May 1st. Many G Suite users were surprised, and now, Microsoft taking a rather bold marketing step in an attempt to entice G Suite users with a 60 percent discount offer.
Google stopped offering the free G Suite edition to new customers in December 2012, however, they kept the service alive. This legacy free edition lets users have a Gmail account (Google email address) ending with a custom domain rather than the regular “@gmail.com” address. You would have to use a different email address or find another email provider.
Google is giving legacy free edition users until May 1st to sign up for a subscription, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, or Enterprise. Otherwise, Google will choose a plan that suits your needs based on the features you already used. There’s no option for a free plan unless you have an educational institution or non-profit organization, you may be able to receive a plan at no cost.
The problem with G Suite legacy free accounts is that they act as Google accounts for the whole Google ecosystem. It is not only about using emails, calendar events, and contacts. Some users with G Suite legacy free accounts have been using those accounts with Google Drive, Google Maps, YouTube, purchases on Google Play, and more Google apps.
What are your options?
- Stay with Google
If you’re a G Suite legacy free edition user, your organization will soon have to sign up for a paid subscription to continue using Google Workspace.
Google provides an option to transfer your non-Google Workspace paid content and most of your data to a no-cost option. However, this option won’t include some of the features like custom email or multi-account management. Furthermore, you’ll be able to evaluate this option prior to July 1, 2022, and prior to account suspension.
2. Migrate from G Suite
Today there are so many options and cloud providers that you just need to choose the best solution for your needs. It’s no surprise that business environments are always changing, and this is perfect timing to research and understand your priorities, as well as platform elements that were changed. You can check the different offers, pricing, and also promotions like the cheeky offer from Microsoft.
What you need to know before your G Suite migration
Migrations can be complex projects with steep penalties for failure. It’s important to consider variables like migration challenges according to G Suite’s restrictions, the number of users, and the amount of data to be migrated.
First, it recommendable to create a G Suite backup to your local environment. Then, you have to search for a migration tool that will help you with the process and even ask for professional services.
Before you start the migration, ask for a demo and a free trial. Search for a tool that will be secure, easy to use, and know how to handle the limitations of a G Suite migration. For example, Cloudsfer can handle it and help you migrate Google Drive native files even more than 10MB.
Why should you migrate to Microsoft 365?
Microsoft recently announced that they are offering a 60 percent discount on its Microsoft 365 platform to G Suite customers. The users will be able to take advantage of the promo if they purchase a 12-month subscription to Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, or Business Premium. In addition to that, US-based users will get a year of free Business Assist support, which is Microsoft’s platform to help small businesses migrate and quickly get up to speed.
The offer is exclusive to G Suite legacy free edition users who purchase a 12-month Microsoft 365 subscription by August 2nd, 2022. The offer includes support for custom domains, Microsoft Teams access, Office apps, and OneDrive cloud storage. So if you always thought that one day you will migrate G Suite to OneDrive, now you have a great reason to do it!
G Suite migration tool
Cloudsfer has a fast, secure, and use to use G Suite to Office 365 migration tool. Our tool can help you migrate all your data including metadata, users, and permissions to more than 20 cloud systems. Migrating with Cloudsfer will make the process easier than you thought, preserving the original file modification date, and keeping the hierarchy structure and administrators can migrate from their Google Suite sub-accounts, get a complete report and perform delta migration with the click of a button.
It looks like the only option is to start paying or move to competitors like Microsoft 365. We are here to help you with the best G Suite migration tool.
