Google has made an
interesting announcement regarding its plan to change the design of its suite
of office apps! Now the G Suite apps – Gmail, Chat, Docs, Sheets, Meet, and
Calendar – are getting merged and rebranded as Google Workspace.

Apart from
getting rebranded, these apps are getting new features designed to make them
firmly integrated with one another. Google is also going to change up the
pricing plan and add a new “business plus” which would have several devices
and management features.

For example, a chat
window can now spawn a new document and be used by everybody on a group without
having to open another tab. Google Docs is different as well because you can
now instantly start a video call with any member active on the document.

Now the idea to merge Gmail and all the apps isn’t new – Microsoft has self-admittedly been trying to design
the same thing with its Fluid framework in Office. By making these changes,
Google is now challenging Microsoft Office!

When you press the
release quote from the Vice President in charge of Google Workspace, you get
this explicit response: “This is the end of the ‘office’ as we know it.”

After taking the
initial steps towards the great mergers, Google is hoping to attract more users
by creating further conveniences. Of course, not everything’s going to be
fitted into one tab; that could be extremely suffocating and terribly chaotic.
Hence, only the elements of the Google Workspace that you choose to use will be
surfaced on top for you.

You’ll actually be able
to view a sample of this kind of integration from today onwards. Google
Workspace apps will allow users to add small previews of their documents the
way they like. In addition, Google is expanding the use of “smart chips” so you
can use them as contact cards and mention anyone using the “@” options.

Slightly more ambitious
features will be launching in the coming weeks. The non-business customers can
get accustomed to these changes too, but only after business users are
entertained first.

However, it is
essential to address that these changes are desktop-centric and so they’re
focused on Google apps fitted on browsers like Chrome and others. Furthermore,
the Gmail icon is getting painted differently – the all red letters will now be
multicolored!

The VP has suggested that
Google will not be reducing the support of the third-party apps in the Google
Workspace. You can say that these changes are a bit of a statement as Google prepares itself to solidify its competition with
The Office!