Google Inks Cloud Apps Deal With Capital One

Capital One Financial Corp. is in the process of moving more than 40,000 employees from Microsoft’s cloud email and productivity applications to Google’s competing products, according to two people with knowledge of the agreement. A Capital One spokeswoman confirmed the deal late Monday.

Capital One is the latest big-name customer to switch from Microsoft’s cloud productivity applications, called Office 365, to Google Cloud’s alternatives, known as G Suite, following similar deals in recent months with Airbus and Nielsen. Although Microsoft still dominates the huge market for productivity applications—bundles of email, word processing, spreadsheet and other tools—the deals are a way for Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene to show progress toward her stated goal of signing up Fortune 500 customers. Getting a foot inside the doors of large companies with productivity applications could also help Google expand those relationships to include a wider range of Google Cloud services. Microsoft has said customers that use Office 365 tend to use more cloud services from its Azure business, including storage and server offerings, than ones that don’t.