G Suite pivots: Meet the new glue

Service integration

G Suite has historically grown from a collection of services. Many of them are brands of their own. That is fine when they are market leaders, standards or offer superior functionality, as is the case with Gmail, Drive and Meet. Those products are established, they are the work horses that draw customers in: Gmail is what got you and me to sign up for Google accounts at home. Drive is so successful that companies sign up for Drive while they are still Lotus Notes or Microsoft shops. Now Meet has exploded in popularity - so what about Meet? The answer: G Suite is adding Meet to everything.

One long-standing problem with G Suite is that the "house of brands" philosophy does not work equally for all its products. People have not gotten very excited about products such as Google Docs - inviting unfavorable comparisons with more specialized competitors. Many people do fail to understand that Google Docs is not about formatting your doctoral thesis, but about writing meeting minutes with your team and making sure that only authorized people can comment on it.

So Google Docs, by itself, may not be as important an application as Adobe Indesign. But it is an important instrument in an orchestra composed of Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Meet - all tools that come together in a symphony called "great work". As Javier says, all the great tools are already there, they do not need another one. They just need to work better together. So we finally get to see service integration. Are you ready for some glue?

... this is not even going into any detail of the newly announced Meet features, such as moderation features. All of this is about making sure that Meet is present through all of G Suite.

Drive's "glue" is technical, it is about files and security. Meet's added "glue" is putting people first, it's putting you and your team first. All the AI smarts, the cool design, the security - at the end of the day, it is you and your team who come together, use the tools, get through good times and bad together and move the needle.

Exciting times are coming. Google Workspace is meant to be used with your team, and going forward it will be much easier to have your team with you wherever you are, which is definitely the right answer in these times. Thank you for reading!