Sources: Google is testing a new communications app for businesses, which brings together functions from Gmail, Drive, Hangouts Meet, Hangouts Chat, and more
Google is working on a mobile application for businesses that brings together the functions of several standalone apps the company already offers …
The timing matters because consolidation appears to be becoming deliberate strategy rather than accident: months after this report, Google placed its consumer communication services under G Suite head Javier Soltero and moved to replace Duo with Meet, suggesting one executive now owns the whole communications surface.
First-order effects
Business users testing the app get mail, files, chat, and video in one mobile surface instead of juggling four separate Google apps — directly targeting the workflow where Chat already competes as a Slack-like service.
Second-order effects
A bundled app raises the bar for point-product rivals like Slack, which now compete against a free-standing suite vendor that can absorb messaging into mail and storage at no extra login.
If the pattern holds, enterprise software competition shifts from best-of-breed single apps to integrated suites, forcing standalone vendors to match breadth or retreat to niches the suites underserve.
The trend: Google's workplace tools are cycling from fragmentation back toward a single consolidated work surface, with each reorganization concentrating more of the enterprise stack under one roof.
I would love to have a coffee chat with the VPs and PMs involved in writing product specs for this hundredth chat app at Google https://www.theinformation.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
lololol every year some manager at Google thinks “I've got it!” and they're handed a billion dollars to go build something that the company will shut down 6 months later. https://twitter.com/...
You mean, the same fucking idea as Hangouts Meet but with a tweaked UI, a couple different buttons, a lack of at-launch features and of course, the product of a completely different, silo'd team from any other Google product dealing with messaging. Stay away. https://twitter.com/…
Wonder if Google will start hiring product managers to bring cohesiveness to its enterprise collaboration strategy or will just continue its random walk of half-baked, semi-integrated products? https://twitter.com/...
Impressive how well Thomas Kurian has embraced Google DNA: killing products, developing still yet more communications apps, etc. https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
It's a new year, and that means Google is... *checks notes* ...launching a new messaging app that will contain its other messaging apps https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
Google is working on a messaging app that contains within it two other messaging apps. Sounds like a UX paradise 😍 https://www.theinformation.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
News: Google Cloud Thomas Kurian, at a sales kickoff meeting earlier this month, showed attendees a new mobile app that unifies Gmail, Hangouts Meet/Chat, and Drive. It's part of his broader ambition to make G suite more appealing to businesses. More: https://www.theinformation.c…