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Google Communications

Google is About To Take on Slack and Teams With a New 'Unified' Communication App (inputmag.com) 70

Posted by msmash from the 173rd-time's-the-charm dept.
Google is working on an initiative to streamline its suite of mobile and browser-based apps for businesses into a singular experience, according to The Information. From a report: The app would combine Gmail, Drive, Hangouts Meet, and Hangouts Chat all in one interface, and would provide easier hooks into products like Google Calendar. Google is notorious for its confusing collection of communication apps, from Hangouts Classic to Hangouts Meet and Duo, as well as others that have been killed off (Wave: never forget), and has stumbled with integration before. The company's unification is clearly designed to push back against Microsoft's growth of its Teams product with larger, more established companies. Additionally, Slack has become the de facto method of realtime collaboration and communication among startups. Slack has made integrations with Google products simple while pushing users away from traditional chat like Hangouts, while Microsoft has gone through a renaissance of sorts, releasing a bevy of redesigned communications apps, like Outlook, to positive reviews.
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Google is About To Take on Slack and Teams With a New 'Unified' Communication App More

Google is About To Take on Slack and Teams With a New 'Unified' Communication App

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  • Let's do a pool on when it gets abandoned. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by crgrace ( 220738 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @02:12PM (#59668320)

    I'm going for 36 months. And by abandoned I mean they stop active development, not that it is somehow deactivated.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jwymanm ( 627857 )
      That's 35.5 months longer than I'd wager. Unless you mean stylesheet / icon pack updates.

    • Re:Let's do a pool on when it gets abandoned. (Score:5, Informative)

      by leonbev ( 111395 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @02:22PM (#59668358) Journal

      I figure that they'll stop developing for it within 18 months unless it somehow becomes popular with the education market, and then completely shut it down within 30 months.

      Seriously, the last thing the world needs is another corporate messaging platform. As it is, I'm sick of having to jump between Slack, MS Teams, Skype, and (Insert another obscure proprietary messaging app here) to communicate with my co-workers. Give me a tool that unifies all of those, and then I'll be happy... for about two weeks until they get sued out of existence.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        Dammit! I wanted 18 months!

      • As it is, I'm sick of having to jump between Slack, MS Teams, Skype, and (Insert another obscure proprietary messaging app here) to communicate with my co-workers. Give me a tool that unifies all of those, and then I'll be happy...

        Skype has Skype Web, which is the official platfrom on some platform (the Linux App is simply Skype Web inside a browser-app).

        This has two different consequences:

        The meh:-/ one:

        - Franz [meetfranz.com]
        Is basically a browser-app that can open the Web-App version of lots of modern chats.
        It boils down to something like a glorified browser with all the chats as pinned tabs and desktop notification enabled.

        The actually awesome one:
        - Purple (the library behind Pidgin, Adium, etc.), which can also power Telepathy's Haze module and

      • What you want is Trillian!

      • I figure that they'll stop developing for it within 18 months unless it somehow becomes popular with the education market, and then completely shut it down within 30 months.

        Seriously, the last thing the world needs is another corporate messaging platform.

        Nah, it, or some variant of it, will be around for the long haul, if for no other reason than Google needs something like it for its own internal communications, and will package whatever it uses internally with GSuite.

        At present, that's Meet and Chat. But this unified thing will clearly replace those.

    • Came here to post this. I'm thinking closer to 24 months, and I think that's generous.

    • We all know this timeline...

      1. Feature development will slow over the next 12 months after release and will have all but stopped by that time.
      2. Google will announce that the product will be sunsetted around 24 months after development has stopped.
      3. The service will be discontinued 3-18 months after the sunset, depending on how many paying customers remain.

    • Given that their latest touted Stadia lasted a few months, maybe you're being generous. The awkward development tumbleweed should be their logo

      • Given that their latest touted Stadia lasted a few months, maybe you're being generous.

        That's already dead? That was quick. I don't think Google quite appreciates the long-term damage to their reputation from each of these so many canceled/ignored projects. Each new one that requires large-scale adoption is less likely to succeed than it otherwise would be simply because of what's happened before.

        • Re:Let's do a pool on when it gets abandoned. (Score:5, Informative)

          by Isarian ( 929683 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @03:48PM (#59668646)

          There was a post on the Stadia subreddit that blew up yesterday titled "Stadia has officially gone 40 days without a new game announcement/release, feature update, or real community update". Complaints included (ripped from the page at time of writing):

          - As expected, there haven't been any further updates in January after the "120 game mystery bonanza" (other than February pro games, which we still don't know)
          - Still supposedly 2+ months out until 4k on browser, any Assistant functionality at all, and the true wireless controller functionality advertised
          120 games coming but none revealed so far
          - Pixel phone remains the only Android phone with Stadia functionality
          - Still no mention of iOS
          - Still no mention at all of Stadia base
          - Still no mention of family sharing
          - Still no acknowledgement that they've read and/or are listening to the community (or plan on bettering their communication model)
          - Daily updates, scrapped for weekly updates, scrapped for... bi-monthly updates?

          They also lied in official marketing about Destiny being included in the Founders Edition, and stripped a lot of functionality out of NBA2K20 which is pissing off a lot of sports gamers.

        • This! I came here to post... well basically this thread.

          ^ is extra insightful though; not sure if anyone at Google is keeping an eye on the damage this "built to shutter" ethos does to their reputation and willingness of users to even explore the new stuff they make.

          "Failing fast" at almost everything you do isn't a badge of nouveau product development honor, it's a warning sign that I shouldn't build or base anything in my business off of platforms that are likely to stagnate and disappear within a

        • Given that their latest touted Stadia lasted a few months, maybe you're being generous.

          That's already dead?

          Already? The fucking thing was stillborn.

    • I cannot imagine very many businesses above a hundred people or so that would trust google with business communications.

    • I'm going for 36 months. And by abandoned I mean they stop active development, not that it is somehow deactivated.

      Or, at least, comes out of "beta" ... :-)

    • The real question is if they can mine sufficient data to support increased ad sales with this service. Why any business would trust Google to sustain a business critical function or mine data is baffling.

    • The first time google cancelled a communication service I was using, I blamed them.

      The second time google cancelled a communication service I was using, I blamed myself.

      There is no way they're going to get me to try one of their new communication services. No way.

      If they didn't like the old one, they could have not cancelled it, and just slowly started adding the features that they want to have in the new one. Duh. It is as if they hired a bunch of MBAs, but only ones with finance undergraduate degrees. Non

  • So when will they announce the.. ahh damn it someone beat me to this post.

  • Wave (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nEoN nOoDlE ( 27594 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @02:14PM (#59668332)

    So basically they're going to resurrect Google Wave?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tecker ( 793737 )
      Oh that would be interesting. And really the field is primed for that to come back. Make it an alternative interface to Gmail and it would really put a hurt on the others. I have longed for the "business over email" chain to die and go into Wave because then I could follow them. We will see but I think it will be yet another "us too" venture and will fail soon thereafter.
    • Yes, but with a different group of people, so there will be more promotions and resume-padding for everyone.
    • Bound to crash of course. While their 5 users foam in anger.

    • They'll call it Google Waiver this time

    • Re:Wave (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @04:50PM (#59668848)

      Gosh, when I was counting up their cancelled communication platforms I completely forgot about that one!

      Thanks for reminding me.

      Wave seemed like it had a lot of potential, maybe not for what they used it for. I was really interested in third party uses of it as a platform, but it didn't last long enough to get a beta out.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      But for smartphone use, so it will be really good this time .. less of that desktop use to code for...

    • I was going to post the same thing. I actually used Wave and I think Google cut the cord on that prematurely. If they had continued to develop it I'm sure many companies would use it rather than Slack. It was pretty useful for the collaborative project I was working on at the time. Google, especially at that time, had a tendency to provide products with a short window to succeed and if they didn't they quickly abandoned them. It was a real pain in the ass when I had to scramble to set up my own server and f

  • as much as I hate Slack (Score:3)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @02:14PM (#59668338) Journal
    As much as I hate Slack (for the lousy UI, and the lack of an open protocol that would let me make my own UI), the chances of Google succeeding with yet another chat program seems really low.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )

      As much as I hate Slack (for the lousy UI, and the lack of an open protocol that would let me make my own UI), the chances of Google succeeding with yet another chat program seems really low.

      There's a special place in Hell reserved for the people who came up with and implemented the "Drafts" feature.

    • You mean https://github.com/raelgc/scud... [github.com] doesn't actually exist?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jucer ( 1646711 )
      You don't like the glory of https://github.com/erroneousbo... [github.com] ? You don't need to leave your terminal... Really, I'm not sure why this complain. Slack has an API and I wrote some scripts that can post to our slack channels (or users) for the status of our grid environment or job completions...

  • Yawn (Score:2, Troll)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

    Have it interface with iMessage and then we're getting somewhere. Otherwise its one of the dozens of messaging apps on Android that don't communicate with anything else.

    • Re:Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)

      by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @03:08PM (#59668528)

      Have it interface with iMessage and then we're getting somewhere. Otherwise its one of the dozens of messaging apps on Android that don't communicate with anything else.

      I find that viewpoint ironic. iMessage is the poster child for not working with others. In fact, it's the one reason why I have to buy my daughter an iPhone, because the girls in her circle without access to iMessage are effectively ostracized in terms of messaging.

      • Well that's not a bad thing for Apple then. Looks like their product lock-in worked!

      • Yeah it works with *any* iPhone or other Apple device. Android has no equivalent and it never will.

      • Well, the comment you're answering to is currently modded "Troll" and I think it should stay that way.
        OTOH it's so sad that the main reason to buy a (expensive) piece of hardware is to be able to run a particular piece of software. I'm not judging you (I'd probably do the same if I were in the same situation) but I hate this kind of lock in.

  • Terrible (Score:3)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @02:18PM (#59668350)
    Slack is completely terrible. You can't even type a sentence like "What # u at" because it wants to do magical things when you type '#'. I really don't understand how a company could get chat so terribly wrong and yet are seemingly successful with it.

  • ANOTHER ONES !? (Score:5, Informative)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @02:36PM (#59668400) Homepage

    https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]

    Gmail
    Google Chat
    Google Talk
    Google Voice
    Google Fi
    Google Wave
    Google Duo
    Google Hangouts (classic)
    Google Hangouts Meet
    Google Hangouts Chat
    Google+
    Android Messages
    Android RCS

    How many communication services do we need from ONE COMPANY?

    • Haha, this was EXACTLY what I was reminded of when I saw this announcement!

      I don't know how it's possible, but Google makes me believe that corporations can be afflicted with ADHD.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ps613 ( 6567028 )
      There is even one more. Google Allo

    • Just one that meets your requirements. So far none of the ones listed are even remotely suitable for use in business and nothing compared to slack.

  • I'll pay to opt out (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pimpy ( 143938 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @02:38PM (#59668408)

    As a g suite user, I'm happy to pay more just to not have Google's new half-baked and entirely unnecessary service forced on me or my employees. It's only a matter of time before it gets killed off anyways.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dysmal ( 3361085 )

      That would be a brilliant model actually. Release a product. Get people hooked on it. Threaten to release a shitty update. Offer people to pay to opt out of it.

  • Aw geeze, not this shit again (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @02:50PM (#59668452) Homepage Journal

    I'm really not sure what problem Google is trying to solve, other than the problem of having a sterling reputation building communications tools. Gmail + Talk and voice were great tools. Which were replaced by Hangouts. After that I lost track of the 20+ chat apps they've built and abandoned. I am definitely not going to use whatever garbage they've shat out this week.

  • Some end to end encryption would be nice... (Score:3)

    by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @02:52PM (#59668470)

    How about adding some functionality from Signal or Telegram, and having end to end encryption, and maybe even special functionality so stuff like passwords can be communicated via the app seamlessly, with the protected data set to expire after a period of time? This would be quite useful.

    Otherwise, what does this app give that pretty much everything else out there wouldn't?

  • while I idle on IRC.

  • It was obvious years ago they make fake technical projects as a way of inflating their numbers on diversity hires being in technical roles. Then when it fails like they knew it would it's just a tiny fraction of their margin and dismissed as "we're an R&D company so that's normal." Google seems like a giant daycare facility running on the work of people from 10+ years ago.
  • Google being so awesome and run by such smart people with unlimited resources can't help but be successful! Everything they touch is pure gold! Good, I tell you! If google wants to take over chat or other social web messaging stuff or anything at all no one can stop them! They are so smart! Can not fail!
  • That never work on a bad connection (e.g. train, in the UK). Maybe it works better on Chrome (I'm on firefox), but I can never seem to read my email or check google drive while on the train. My email is being "loading" while I'm wasting my time here trashing google, for several minutes.

  • The reason slack is so popular is that a) there is a free tier and b) there are lots of integrations. You don't get b) without the user base that comes from having a) and slack has far more unpaid users than paid ones. If Google is serious about this they need to be thinking about more than just Gsuite users or they will never get the mind share required for the service to survive. Microsoft is making a big push to get people to use Teams and by including it with Office 360 as well as having a free tier,

  • Are they naming the unified product Saurons Ring?

  • Google has announce that they are shutting down their New 'Unified' Communication App. Last day of service will be 1/31/2020.

  • This is a bullish indicator for slack if their ever was one. LOL.

  • and we'll carry it to the graveyard of abandoned Google projects.
    https://gcemetery.co/ [gcemetery.co]

  • If it's anything like google's previous communication products, the code is already frozen and the team was already dissolved; the deployment script is still running and once it's complete, the product will be announced. No bugs will be fixed, no features will be added, and once enough users start using it, they will announce the product has been EOLed.

  • The app would combine Gmail, Drive, Hangouts Meet, and Hangouts Chat all in one interface

    Why are these the apps that Google is combining? They should start with combining all of their messaging apps, e.g. Talk, Hangouts, the SMS portion of Google Voice, Duo, and whatever other IM/SMS apps they have. That should be easy. They don't even do meaningfully different things.

    Then integrate Google Voice and Google Meet into a single real-time audio/video platform.

    Start with that. Consolidate all of their communications into 3 platforms: Gmail, IM/SMS, VoIP/Voice/Video conferencing. I don't see h

  • Great, I'll let all my Google Hangout friends know. Then my Allo Friends. Then my Android Messages friends. Then my Duo friends. You're 10 years too late Google.

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