Google has revamped its Workspace productivity suite with slew of updates, including new features for free users, a paid plan for entrepreneurs and fresh capabilities for its Meet video-conferencing system in an effort to better compete with Microsoft Teams.
One of the moves, dubbed Workspace for Everyone, will extend the collaboration tools that corporate users receive to non-paying consumers. Google will also offer a tier called Workspace Individual designed for entrepreneurs, which extends premium features of the software to small businesses, and it has upgraded Meet for a hybrid work future, in which some employees attend meetings in the office and others from home.
Workspace, which includes the popular email service Gmail, is now used by more than 3 billion users, Google said. Still, not all of its component applications are equally popular. For more than a year, the internet giant has loaded Meet with more features to catch up to video-conferencing leader Zoom Video Communications. Google also lags behind in workplace collaboration and chat tools, a space where Microsoft Teams and Slack Technologies have excelled. Google’s announcements demonstrate an ambition to be dominant in these markets among workers, students and consumers.
Google has long sought ways to diversify its revenue, 80% of which came from advertising in 2020. The lion’s share of sales is generated by its popular online services, including search, Maps and YouTube. The company is trying to translate its popularity among free Workspace users into more subscription revenue from small businesses and large enterprises.
Google will let everyone use Chat, its alternative to Teams and Slack, which had been available only for paying customers. While the app is currently subdivided into ‘Rooms’ where individuals message one another, they will be replaced by ‘Spaces.’ Spaces will become a communications hub, where groups of users can email, instant message, begin a Meet call and collaborate on documents and spreadsheets.
Workspace Individual is an attempt to further monetize the productivity suite that competes against Microsoft’s 365 software lineup. At a cost of $9.99 a month, users will receive personalized email marketing, smart booking services and other features previously available only to large companies.
Meet will offer a ‘Companion Mode’ starting in September, which lets workers attending a meeting in an office log into the video-conference through a second device, so they can take part in polls, chats and question-and-answer sessions. The idea is to create parity between those in the physical conference room and their colleagues who are logged in remotely.
