Google rejigs G Suite with a fresh look
Google is massively upgrading its G Suite tools used in offices and when working at home.
Google has announced a massive upgrade to its G Suite professional tools with a unified interface and extended functionality.
In what is the culmination of 18 months’ work, Google is centralising its business tools in one place so that you don’t swap from screen to screen.
Some of the changes have already begun. Video conferring tool Meet has been brought into Gmail on the web, and in the Android and iOS apps. Google Chat too has been brought into Gmail on the web and soon Chat will join Gmail on Android and iOS.
However the new G Suite goes further. Google is hoping that by combining tools together, users won’t lose focus on their activities as they move between screens, and can complete one task seamlessly, moving from tool to tool.
New tools are being given more emphasis. In olden days, the main work tools were emails, presentations, spreadsheets and word processing.
In 2020 you add chat, video conferencing, tasks, collaboration and combined file management into the mix and a way of using them simultaneously.
The new G Suite lets you combine the functionality, for example, collaborate in a document while simultaneously on the same page, chat about the contents. You can create projects which combine chat, a list of files and tasks. A group of colleagues in a chat can switch to holding a video meeting.
Users can share files and tasks as they meet in chat rooms.
Google says Chat will let users create rooms that include people outside the company, such as contractors and consultants.
Workers can open and co-edit a document with their team without leaving mail.
Users can chat about changes they are making to a document in real time, or assign a new task, without switching between screens.
The new G Suite has a plain interface and will be available in the web and on apps.
Google says it will be available to Australian users in coming weeks.
The changes are not available to users of the free version of Gmail.
Intense competition
The revamped G Suite comes as the competition heats up between software vendors, with more people working at home and needing stronger collaboration and integrated video tools.
In particular, Google’s new Meet video conferencing tool is taking on Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, Skype and the popular Zoom in a rapidly growing market.
Google vice president of G Suite Javier Soltero said Meet wouldn’t have been available broadly without the pandemic.
“Decisions like us making Meet, which is our flagship video conferencing product, broadly available to all consumers, was the kind of decision that we wouldn‘t have otherwise anticipated outside of the COVID-19 world.”
He said the development of the new G Suite workspace began at the start of 2019.
“I guess in this pandemic, no one would have anticipated when we started the work last year, that it has heightened the need for video calling.”
But he rejected that Google was integrating Meet to make it less convenient for users to access other video conferencing clients.
“The idea is that users voluntarily choose them because they‘re better, not because they’re closer to one another or whatever.”
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