Airbus ditches Microsoft Office for Google

Airbus is ditching Microsoft Office and introducing Google's G Suite enterprise collaboration and productivity software for its 130,000 employees.

The rollout will occur over the next 18 months following a pilot of the software.

Airbus chief information officer Luc Hennekens said the company needed tools that would enable it to achieve "rapid innovation, speed and agility in execution".

"Large industrials anywhere in the world these days are working hard to become more agile and customer-centric and use digital technology to help achieve that," he said in a LinkedIn post.

"Airbus recognised the transformative power of digital years ago and has been achieving real business results by investing in digitalisation.

"But along the way, it has become more and more clear, that in any system change, it is the people and their ability to work together which matter most for true agility and customer satisfaction."

Google's G Suite represented "the best digital tools" on the market today for collaboration, Hennekens said.

He said "traditional organisation structures and ways of working" no longer fit within a "rapidly changing and technology-driven world".

"Our move to G-Suite will drive real transformational change from the grassroots up, enabling connections between employees like never before," Hennekens said.

"It will give our people the tools to work in a way which is more natural, more collaborative and much more enjoyable."

The deployment is a big win for Google, which has been working hard to make inroads in the enterprise space with G Suite, against market leader Microsoft.

At its most recent financial results Google said G Suite was bringing in US$1 billion per quarter.

Microsoft does not break out Office 365 sales. Its productivity and business processes division, which houses Office as well as its Dynamics platform, brought in US$8.95 billion in its most recent quarter.