Google launches Hangouts app for Chrome on Windows and Chrome OS
Google today launched a new Hangouts app for Chrome on Windows as well as Chrome OS. You can download the app now directly from the Chrome Web Store. — The release brings Google's chat service to the desktop in a new way.
Context & Ripple Effects
This launch extends a pattern Google has been assembling since it pushed the Chrome app launcher out to all Windows users in July 2013: treat the browser itself as a desktop software platform. It then started building Chrome OS straight into Windows 8, and in March 2014 brought Google Now into Chrome on Windows and Mac — each step moving a Google service out of the tab and onto the desktop.
Hangouts is the next service through that door. The pickup was broad for a small release — Google's own Chrome Blog alongside TechCrunch, Engadget, Gigaom, Gizmodo, The Next Web and the Inquirer all carried it the same day — which suggests how closely the Chrome-as-platform strategy is being watched.
First-order effects
- Windows users get Hangouts as a standalone app installed from the Chrome Web Store instead of a Gmail or Google+ tab, giving Google's chat service a persistent presence outside the browser window.
- Chrome OS gains a first-party desktop messaging client distributed through Google's own store, tightening the integration between the two products Google controls end to end.
Second-order effects
- On Windows, the Chrome Web Store now competes with Microsoft's native software channels for everyday communication apps — Google is shipping desktop software on Microsoft's own OS without going through it.
- Every service Google ports into a Chrome app raises the switching cost of leaving Chrome itself, pressuring rival browser makers whose platforms host fewer of Google's products.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — launcher, Google Now, now Hangouts — Chrome hardens into a cross-platform application runtime whose app ecosystem is curated by Google rather than the operating-system vendor, which is precisely the logic behind the earlier Chrome OS-in-Windows-8 effort.
The trend: Google is steadily converting Chrome from a browser into a desktop services layer that distributes its apps on any operating system, with the Chrome Web Store as the channel.