Google wins contract to supply cloud IT services to InterContinental Hotels
INTERCONTINENTAL Hotels Group is switching 25,000 of its employees and hotel managers onto an email system managed by Google in place of Microsoft’s Outlook.
The move is a significant but rare victory for Google, which has been trying for several years to break Microsoft’s dominance in the market for corporate software and communication applications.
The new email system, part of the Google Apps suite of products being used by IHG, will be entirely in the “cloud” – meaning it will be run on servers managed by Google and accessed by users via the internet, IHG said.
A representative for Google confirmed the contract and said the company was pleased to work with IHG.
The world’s largest hotel company – which runs the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotel chains, among others – is saving about 30 per cent off the cost of running equivalent Microsoft products, said Gustaaf Schrils, IHG’s vice president of technology in the Americas, though he said he could not divulge exact figures.
Google charges a flat subscription of $50 per user per year for Google Apps for big customers like IHG. Microsoft has said its competing Office 365 cloud-based suite of applications – set for launch later this month – will cost between $25 and $325 per user per year.