Google is taking the SaaS fight to rivals Microsoft and IBM with a new offer that provides its Google Apps for Work for free when a company has an existing enterprise agreement (EA) with another provider.

Google to its credit didn’t name Microsoft or IBM in its official announcement about the new offer, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines when the post includes the sentence ” If you’re worried about switching to Docs because you still have an enterprise agreement (EA) with another provider, we’ll cover the fees of Google Apps until your contract runs out.”

If that’s not a big enough incentive to make the switch, Google further said they will also offer to pay some of the deployment costs involved in making the switch, as well as connecting those doing so with Google for Work Partners who specialize in assisting companies coming across to Google Apps for Work for the first time. Within the fine print there are some caveats, including Google capping the amount it covers for deployment at $25 per user, but it’s still a decent enough offering.

Google didn’t stop there though with the sales/switch pitch, further noting that:

Once your current EA is up, we offer a simple contract with no traps or gotchas. For a lot of businesses, it’s cheaper, too. Our estimates suggest that businesses with basic EAs and no dependencies can potentially unlock savings of up to 70 percent by switching to Google Apps for Work.

The platform, that competes directly Microsoft’s Office 365 and IBM’s Docs service, offers enterprise versions of popular Google services including Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and Drive, as well as related services including Gmail, Hangouts, Calendar, and others.

Google Apps for Work starts at a base price of $5 per user per month, then increases to $10 per user per month for unlimited storage space and Google Vault, a centralized system that allows for the search and discovery of emails, chats, documents and files across an enterprise.

War

Google’s suite of online Office-like products was revolutionary when it launched in 2006, but since that time Microsoft has moved away from its traditional software installed on a machine platform to embrace the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model as well, having launched Office 365 in 2011; it has in theory been war between the two tech giants since that point.

Upping the ante with incentives to get enterprises to make the switch is a marketing 101 move from Google, and although the offering is appealing, particularly given Google is willing to chip in to help with the deployment/ switch, whether it will switch Microsoft users to the Alphabet, Inc. division that is Google is another matter.

Enterprises interested in signing up for the deal, or learning more, can follow this link.

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