There is no doubt that in the world of office productivity, Microsoft easily has the upper hand with its office suite. While Google has been able to take a lot of the operating system market away from Microsoft with its Android platform, it hasn’t had the same success through its G-Suite of office products, with Microsoft continuing to prove superior in that department.
Google isn’t planning on giving up though and has announced a big rebranding and redesign for its suite of office apps today to better compete with its big rival. Along with new logos for each of its different apps, Google is also renaming its G Suite to Google Workspace, which will encompass Gmail, Docs, Meet, Sheets, and Calendar. Each program will receive new features to allow for better integration with each other (as revealed by The Verge).
Taking inspiration from Office’s Fluid framework, the apps will receive features like a Chat window that can spawn a new document for everybody in the group without needing a new tab or a video call, access to documents with the same tabs that are linked in the current one you are working on or a chat option with everyone currently collaborating on a shared document.
It’s that focus on collaboration aimed at remote workers that Google is hoping will win over companies to utilize its programs and help staff work better together.
I like the focus on making it easier to navigate your different Google apps and to be able to work more seamlessly between them. It’s definitely a step in the right direction, though google still has a long way to go to catch up with Microsoft on its many other comprehensive features that make its Office tools so powerful.
If they somehow do that, without making their apps such a resource hog through Chrome, then Google may be in a position to better compete with Microsoft’s at long last.
Last Updated: October 8, 2020
