Google grabs Nielsen as business apps user from Microsoft

This photo taken on April 11, 2016 shows visitors gathering at Google booth during the 2016 China International Electronic Commerce Expo in Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang province. The on-going China International Electronic Commerce Expo, which is being held in eastern China's Yiwu city from April 11 to 13, has attracted 1,185 e-commerce companies from 12 countries including Canada, France and Germany. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT

Kim Anstett made an unusual decision for a corporate technology buyer. Several months ago, the chief information officer of media measurement firm Nielsen Holdings Plc, moved 56,000 employees from Microsoft Corp’s business software to Google. 

For word processing and spreadsheets, Nielsen staff now uses Google Docs and Sheets instead of Microsoft’s Word and Excel applications from its familiar Office suite of software. For video conferencing and messaging, Nielsen dropped Microsoft’s Skype in favour of Google equivalents.