Google has launched a major advertising campaign in the UK to encourage companies to make the switch from on-premise email, supplied by firms such as Microsoft and IBM, to its cloud-based Google Apps services.

The campaign was launched in the US in August, and calls on businesses to dump their current email provider and "Go Google". The company claims that more than two million businesses now use Google Apps.

The Google Apps suite contains features such as Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Talk.

Google said that the advertising campaign has been expanded to other countries, including France, Canada, Japan, Australia and Singapore.

"We hope our messages in train stations such as Paddington, La Défense and Shinagawa, and at airports in Singapore, Toronto, Dallas and beyond, will help companies, schools and organisations learn all about the benefits of going Google with our enterprise products," said Tom Oliveri and Vivian Leung from the Google Enterprise Team in a blog post.

Google has encouraged businesses to make the switch to Google Apps from Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes by launching specific tools this summer, including Google Apps Migration for Lotus Notes and Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook.