In fact, he says that “these products are playing an important role in people’s lives” and “it would be irresponsible” to make too-rapid chances to these products as people depend on them.
The way Soltero characterizes his job is to “drive more innovation and more clarity around how these products can fulfill their specific missions.” This suggests he doesn’t intend to integrate all of Google’s chat apps in the way that Facebook is planning to do with Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. “The plan continues to be to modernize towards Google Meet and Google Chat.”
#Google duo vs hangouts free#
Google Meet also became free for everybody far ahead of the original schedule because of the pandemic.Ĭleaning up the consumer side of all that is more complicated, but Soltero says, “The plan continues to be to modernize towards Google Meet and Google Chat.” Soltero has also moved rapidly (at least by the standards of Google’s communication apps) to clean up the Hangouts branding mess, converting Hangouts Video to Google Meet and Hangouts Chat to Google Chat - at least on the enterprise side. Prior to joining Google, he had a long career that included creating the much-loved Acompli email app, which Microsoft acquired and essentially turned into the main Outlook app less than two months after signing the deal. Still, Google’s communications apps are in dire need of a more coherent and opinionated production development, and Soltero could very well be the right person to provide that direction. “We believe people make choices around the products that they use for specific purposes,” Soltero says.
Soltero tells me that there are no immediate plans to change or integrate any of Google’s apps, so don’t get your hopes up for that (yet). The move puts all of Google’s major communication products under one umbrella: Soltero’s team. Now, the company is putting him in charge of yet another set of products: Messages, Duo, and the phone app on Android. But the app still lacks essential features like virtual backgrounds, breakout rooms and polls.In October of last year, Google hired Javier Soltero to be the VP and GM of G Suite, its set of office apps and - importantly for today’s news - Google Meet and Google Chat. Google made the product free to compete with Zoom. The launch of Chat in Gmail comes shortly after Google added Meet to the email sidebar. In addition to Meet and Hangouts, both of which provide video conferencing, Google offers Duo, a mobile meeting app. Google also has an overlapping portfolio of communications apps. "Google is aware that the naming convention for especially their chat products had been confusing to say the least," said Wayne Kurtzman, an analyst at IDC. That caused confusion because Google's consumer messaging service has long been called Hangouts. Google Meet and Google Chat were previously called Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat. In contrast, rival Microsoft has prioritized its Teams app over Outlook for collaboration. "It strikes me very much as just an improvement to instant messaging, which is where the competitors were years ago."įor Google, Gmail remains the focal point of their business communications strategy.
#Google duo vs hangouts upgrade#
"I see this as really just an upgrade over Hangouts," Lazar said. The product is more aptly called an instant messaging app than a team collaboration app, he said. Users can also cross-launch Google Meet, a video conferencing tool, and Google Voice, a telephony service.īut as a collaboration tool, Chat isn't on par with apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams, said Irwin Lazar, an analyst at Nemertes Research. In addition to the Gmail tie-in, Chat now supports messaging with external parties that also use Chat.Ĭhat is more advanced than Hangouts because it supports things like project channels and the ability to forward a message to email. Google also added to Chat some essential features whose absence had been giving customers pause. The release marked the end of a closed beta program during which a handful of customers made the move. This month, however, Google began letting any customer swap out Hangouts for Chat within Gmail. The search giant initially scheduled that transition for October 2019 but now won't push the switch until late 2020. Google previously postponed plans to force businesses to adopt Chat in place of the older messaging app Hangouts.
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