Google looks to take on Microsoft with two mysterious G Suite projects

It’s no secret that Google‘s rebranding of Google Apps for Work into G Suite, as well as improvements and additions made to it since, has been an effort to remain competitive against Microsoft‘s Office 365 and other offerings.

If a report from The Information is on the money, however, Google will make significant improvements to G Suite, starting with a mysterious project that lets companies manage their employees’ data. Google reportedly asked G Suite customers what tools they used to manage employees’ data, and while there is no name for the project, Google will reportedly charge customers $8 a month for every employee the company manages data for.

Google’s unnamed project is reminiscent of Microsoft’s existing Active Directory, which looks to be ready sometime during the first half of 2018. The Information didn’t say when the search giant will launch its service, though odds are that will happen sometime in 2018.

Arguably more intriguing is another one of Google’s projects, codenamed “Wolverine.” This one is reportedly a business-centric voice-over-IP service that can route calls inside and outside of a company. If that sounds familiar, that’s because Microsoft’s Skype for Business already does something similar, so this is more of Google catching up than a trailblazing move.

Whatever Wolverine ends up looking like once it becomes available, it will reportedly be cloud-based and help Google make improvements to Hangouts’ video and audio calling. Specific information like price and availability is unknown, though we might learn more at some point in 2018.

Overall, these new projects indicate Google’s want to double-down on G Suite. Microsoft is a huge player in the enterprise market, so all Google can do is continue to chip away at the folks from Redmond and see what happens.