#Google hangouts app for ga full#

Google is also launching a bot creation platform to let more third-party firms build their own integrations. For example there is the bot, which lets users know when Google Docs files are shared, when comments are made or when there are requests to access content in the document storage platform.Īnother bot, integrates directly with Google’s Calendar app to schedule meetings. Īs well as third-party applications, bots that integrate with Google’s own suite of applications are available. “Hangouts Chat has to come down into the flow of how people work, so the G Suite and Salesforce integrations will be key,” said Smith. Another important integration is with Salesforce’s customer relationship management software. Zero, Egnyte, Zoom.ai, Trello, Jira, and Wrike are among those available at launch. “For products to win in the market, they need an ecosystem, not just native features,” said Lepofsky.Ĭhat will launch with 25 bots to help speed up business application workflows. This has been a particular strength for Slack, and last week Atlassian announced that it had opened its Stride API for developers to create apps.

One of the key features of the new crop of collaboration tools is the ability to hook into other applications. “Similar to Google+, it’s not features that will drive adoption, but rather establishing a large and loyal customer base, then being able to get those customers to push usage to their external partners,”said Lepofsky.Īnother challenge Google faces is getting business partners to create third party add-ons. He added that the challenge for Google to grow adoption will be more a cultural than a technical one. So, just as Teams is a natural fit for Microsoft customers, “Hangouts should appeal to existing G-Suite customers,” Lepofsky said. It is also possible to jump quickly from Chat into a Hangouts Meet video call. “Each vendor in this space has its pros and cons – what’s most important is the insertion strategy and ‘stickiness,’” he said, “what gets people to start using a tool, and what keeps them there.”Īs with Microsoft Teams and Office 365, Google’s Chat is tightly integrated into its G Suite portfolio, which includes Drive, Calendar, Sheets and Slides. Scott Johnston, Google’s director of product management, said in a blog post that artificial intelligence will help automate tasks within Hangouts Chat, such as “booking rooms, searching for files and more.”įor companies, it is important not to get caught up in a side-by-side, checklist comparison of features from the various platforms, according to Alan Lepofsky, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. There are built-in compliance features to meet data retention, eDiscovery and regulatory demands for large businesses, thanks to Google Vault. “It's become a crowded space, as they're all fairly similar.”Įach Hangout Chat room can support up to 8,000 users and is available via browser and mobile devices, with support for iOS and Android. “It's not late per se, it is still early days as vendors try target specific use cases,” said David Mario Smith, founder and principal at InFlow Analysis. None yet truly dominates the market, however, so while Google may be a later entrant, that does not necessarily put it at a disadvantage.

#Google hangouts app for ga full#

With the full launch of Hangouts Chat, Google now adds to a variety of enterprise group messaging options that have appeared in the last two years – from Microsoft Teams, Facebook’s Workplace and Cisco Spark to a range of startups.