Google is taking another crack at messaging, the company’s ‘white whale’ of platforms. This time around, however, the messaging platform seems set to compete with business chat rivals like Slack and Microsoft Teams.
According to a report from The Information, the new chat service would unify communications across multiple Google platforms, including Hangouts Chat, Hangouts Meet, Gmail and Google Drive. That would make it similar in function to Teams, which is an all-in-one solution that works with Microsoft’s Office suite for project collaboration.
It seems that users would be able to use Google’s messaging solution to handle a variety of tasks. For example, a user may need to jump into another app to access their calendar but could respond to an email, answer a conference call or potentially even respond to document edits within this one chat app.
In fact, that would be one of the main appeals of the platform. Many companies rely on G Suite productivity tools. If Google offered an app that let them access almost everything from one place, it could make things easier for businesses who would only need to manage one or two apps instead of several.
While a G Suite-based chat platform for business may not make much difference to Microsft, whose Teams platform is well integrated with Office and is relied on by many businesses, it could impact Slack more. For example, companies that rely on Google services but turn to Slack for workplace discussion could see little reason to stick with it over an all-in-one solution from Google with all the services they already use.
That said, some may be hesitant to jump on another chat platform from Google considering the search giant’s track record with messaging. From Allo to Hangouts to RCS, Google just can’t seem to get chat right or make it stick with consumers. This new service could come to the same fate, leaving businesses that decide to use the platform in a lurch.
Source: The Information Via: Engadget
