Former Outlook and Cortana Boss Now Running Google’s G Suite

Microsoft’s former Outlook boss is now running Google’s G Suite business. Javier Soltero, who first joined Microsoft as part of the company’s acquisition of e-mail app Acompli back in 2014, was responsible for a series of major upgrades to Microsoft Outlook.

Soltero moved on to lead Microsoft’s Cortana personal assistant in 2018 as the Corporate Vice President, but he later left Microsoft near the end of 2018.

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Soltero has now joined Microsoft’s biggest competitor in the business, leading Google’s G Suite. “Some news on the professional front… I’ve joined Google to lead the G Suite team! The opportunity to work with this team on products that have such a profound impact on the lives of people around the world is a real and rare privilege. I’m excited to get to work,” Soltero announced.

Soltero, the new Vice President of G Suite at Google, will run both the consumer and business sides of G Suite, reporting directly to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, according to Axios.

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Conversation 14 comments

  • martinusv2

    Premium Member
    21 October, 2019 - 5:10 pm

    <p>Maybe he will be able to do things he couldn't at Microsoft?</p>

  • Thom77

    21 October, 2019 - 6:01 pm

    <p>I would think going from the Outlook boss to lead Cortana would be a career downgrade, especially in 2018. Either he was brought in based on his brilliance as a last resort to provide a miracle in the Cortana arena, or he was kicked down the ladder for opposite reasons to sink on a sinking ship. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall and see the political atmosphere behind decisions made deep within the den. </p>

    • cayo

      22 October, 2019 - 2:22 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#482475">In reply to Thom77:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>And now he was moved to another sinking ship.</p>

  • dmaddogg

    21 October, 2019 - 6:42 pm

    <p>Paul doesn't Google and Microsoft have an agreement that they won't hire each others people? Some sort of Non-Compete clause where they wouldn't try to steal each other's talent? I am guess that Soltero left on his own accord and was hired separately….</p>

    • Winner

      22 October, 2019 - 1:05 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#482501">In reply to dmaddogg:</a></em></blockquote><p>This is illegal in many states.</p>

  • MikeGalos

    21 October, 2019 - 7:53 pm

    <p>Note he wasn't the "Outlook Boss". He headed up the transition of his acquired startup's code into Outlook. Which is usually part of the acquisition terms.</p>

  • Stooks

    21 October, 2019 - 9:19 pm

    <p>Wrong time to be joining the G Suite team. </p><p><br></p><p>Microsoft has been killing them in Europe because of medical certifications. In the US the Military just chose Office 365 and the department of Interior just dumped G Suite for Office 365 last month which is a loss of 85,000 seats. </p>

  • canamrotax

    Premium Member
    21 October, 2019 - 9:19 pm

    <p>I am cautiously optimistic, my wife however, said "so now gsuite will be messed up?" Beer came out my nose I laughed so hard. </p>

  • BoItmanLives

    21 October, 2019 - 11:20 pm

    <p>Welp guess I better look for a GSuite alternative before he ruins that too.</p>

    • dontbeevil

      23 October, 2019 - 7:01 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#482560">In reply to BoItmanLives:</a></em></blockquote><p>I doubt he can do worst than this, he can only improve it</p>

  • will

    Premium Member
    21 October, 2019 - 11:37 pm

    <p>With a tighter focus on AI at Google I’m curious what he will do. Acompli was a great idea so wish him the best at Google </p><p><br></p><p>never have seen HTML signatures in Outlook mobile yet thought…</p>

  • pacocornholio

    22 October, 2019 - 1:20 am

    <p>Hope he can convince the Drive team to enable sync-by-directory. He's hamstrung otherwise.</p>

  • Pierre Masse

    22 October, 2019 - 5:10 am

    <p>So can we finally call Google Apps (or Google Docs) G Suite for consumer now?</p>

  • werickson

    Premium Member
    22 October, 2019 - 7:00 pm

    <p>It just shows that G Docs is a loser. And Google is trying hard to save it. Everyone I know in the business world uses Office – even students at universities use the google cloud for storage/sharing but Microsoft Office for production.</p>

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