Google Gets Busy
Making Gmail the center of a revolution in workplace connectivity
Today on Twitter, Tahin Rahman spilled the beans about what was to be a major announcement at next week's Cloud Next ’20 OnAir event. Apparently he found slides for next week’s Collaboration and Productivity session for the multiweek event.
Google has plans for a major reworking of Gsuite, with Gmail being placed squarely in the center of its workplace communication offerings. In the not-particularly-clear image above, the current Gmail lefthand margin is augmented with sections for Chat, Meet, and Rooms. The last is an answer to Slack and Microsoft Teams, it seems.
Tahin Rahman posted the slides in his twitter feed. The slides above reveal new features coming soon for Meet, like hand raising, breakout rooms, meeting attendance, and Q&A.
But the major move here is Google accepting the obvious: people who use Gmail consider that the center of their Google world. Yes, we also use teleconferencing tools, various work chat tools, and Gdrive. But we return to Gmail dozens of times a day. Where better to participate in work chat?
