Google Unifies All of Its Messaging and Communication Apps Into a Single Team (theverge.com) 34
Google's move to put Javier Soltero, VP and GM of G Suite, in charge of Messages, Duo, and the phone app on Android, puts all of Google's major communication products under one umbrella: Soltero's team. Dieter Bohn reports via The Verge: 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). "We believe people make choices around the products that they use for specific purposes," Soltero says. 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. 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.
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. Google Meet also became free for everybody far ahead of the original schedule because of the pandemic. Cleaning up the consumer side of all that is more complicated, but Soltero says, "The plan continues to be to modernize [Hangouts] towards Google Meet and Google Chat." "Soltero will remain on the cloud team but will join Hiroshi Lockheimer's leadership team," Dieter adds. While Lockheimer believes there are opportunities to better integrate Google's apps into its platforms, he says it doesn't make sense to force integration or interoperability too quickly.
"It's not necessarily a bad thing that there are multiple communications applications if they're for a different purpose," Lockheimer says. "Part of what might be confusing, what we've done to confuse everyone, is our history around some of our communications products that have gone from one place or another place. But we're looking forward now, in a way that has a much more coherent vision."
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. Google Meet also became free for everybody far ahead of the original schedule because of the pandemic. Cleaning up the consumer side of all that is more complicated, but Soltero says, "The plan continues to be to modernize [Hangouts] towards Google Meet and Google Chat." "Soltero will remain on the cloud team but will join Hiroshi Lockheimer's leadership team," Dieter adds. While Lockheimer believes there are opportunities to better integrate Google's apps into its platforms, he says it doesn't make sense to force integration or interoperability too quickly.
"It's not necessarily a bad thing that there are multiple communications applications if they're for a different purpose," Lockheimer says. "Part of what might be confusing, what we've done to confuse everyone, is our history around some of our communications products that have gone from one place or another place. But we're looking forward now, in a way that has a much more coherent vision."
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I quit using google messaging apps (Score:5, Insightful)
because they keep changing.
Do I use hangouts? Duo? Allo? Meet? Chat?
Pick *one* and stick with it. You've fragmented your own user base!
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You forgot Messages, the default Android SMS client.
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Don't worry... in a year, all that will be discontinued, with 5 or 6 entirely new, poorly designed message apps to replace them.
1/2? Will be bought for $1B each.
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I moved my wife and I to Wire and couldn't be happier.
It's almost as if they sat down and saw how people use chat. Adding images is easier than any google messaging service. Send attachments, group chat. Multiple accounts. Video chat works great. End to end encryption. Only requires an e-mail (temp-mail.org works).
https://wire.com/en/download/ [wire.com]
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Really? I've been using their chat for about 15 years and only had to switch once...when it went from talk to hangouts, which was nearly the same thing anyway. Either way it was the chat app that was integrated into Gmail, so for a web client you didn't have to do anything at all. On a phone, yes you had to switch the app, but it's not like that's a big deal. As I recall it was a quick and hard switchover, so not really any different to a service upgrade with a mandatory version upgrade. So I'm having troub
More coherent, but less good? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Knowing Google, they did this solely to facilitate personal data collection.
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Knowing Google, they did this solely to facilitate personal data collection.
Explain. No please. It's all good and fine to start a conspiracy but for that you actually need an actionable reason behind the conspiracy. How does consolidation of developer teams achieve what you just postulated?
Kids these days don't know how to conspiracy anymore.
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Easy: only one codebase to provide the service in the foreground, and collect personal data in the background. No need to maintain several APIs. No need for software shims to match users in one messaging service with the same users in another.
Also, it's not a conspiracy: everybody and their dogs know Google provides services (good services too) for the sole purpose of luring people into giving away their personal data. Unifying their messaging services makes it easier and cheaper for them to collect and uni
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When will companies realize that a lot of software is more than good enough for most users
But is it? I honestly see nothing but complaints about every software. Hell you're complaining about something you haven't seen yet and don't know anything about, so I think we can conclusively say that Google can't produce software good enough.
If you have a successful product, just leave it alone.
Do you like to disappear into obscurity with a dwindling user base? You seem to be under the impression that companies change things for changes sake. They don't. They change things because it has a visible affect on their bottom line and their user numbers. They cha
Tomorrow's news (Score:4, Funny)
Google is discontinuing support for messaging and communication apps.
Hope you weren't using any of those apps for anything. Please click on some ads.
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They announced that Hangouts was getting the chop years ago but it's still there and working great. It's a great system, I wish they could just leave it alone. At least it looks like there will be a transition path to something else instead of a simply cut-off.
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Google is discontinuing support for messaging and communication apps.
Hope you weren't using any of those apps for anything. Please click on some ads.
Except they aren't and wouldn't since a large portion of their customer base uses them. Google hasn't ever killed a popular product without developing an alternative.
No no, a bunch of Slashdot users reading an RSS feed while posting about it to the six other developers who used Google+ does not count as popular.
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Hey mods, rather than just modding down I openly welcome you to present a counter argument.
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This can only mean one thing (Score:3)
Google is planning on releasing a couple of new, additional messaging apps before the end of the year.
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Brilliant, and exactly where I'm wagering my money.
Zoom (Score:5, Interesting)
Google literally banned Zoom use among their employees because even Google employees can't figure out all the Google messaging platforms and Zoom just kicks their collective asses.
By forcing Google employees to eat their own dogfood, it looks like they might start doing something right.
Remember when Google Talk was federated across Gmail, Hangouts, and XMPP? Ah, back when engineers ran the place.
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Remember when Google Talk was federated across Gmail, Hangouts, and XMPP? Ah, back when engineers ran the place.
Saddest and most appropriate comment ever made about Google.
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It was banned because it's not that secure and meeting recordings aren't kept in a secured location that Google owns. Same reason it's banned at many large companies.
Too little, waaaaayyyyy too late (Score:4, Insightful)
"Part of what might be confusing, what we've done to confuse everyone, is our history around some of our communications products that have gone from one place or another place. But we're looking forward now, in a way that has a much more coherent vision."
It's been so friggin' inconsistent that I've completely given up any hope of Google/Alphabet/Android/Whatever-name-du-jour finally getting their act together on this loooonnng ago.
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Medusa (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, huh. At this point Google can unify their messaging line in the same way Medusa can braid her hair. Might do, but it's going to take some real concentration, focus, and an unholy ability to wrangle some snakes.
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It'd be a lot easier if she could use a damn mirror
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
At this point Google can unify their messaging line in the same way Medusa can braid her hair.
for the love of god please someone MOD PARENT UP!
So will all those services discontinued together? (Score:2)
Oh, I forgot that thinking once is already considered too much of a burden already these days, when it comes to people mindlessly depending on any one commercial service. Never mind.