It would appear that Google is planning another messaging apps shakeup following a detailed exclusive published by 9TO5GOOGLE.
According to the piece, Duo, the video calling app that was launched alongside Allo (a messaging sister that failed spectacularly), will be merged into Meet, the enterprise video calling product that Google has been pushing widely in the last couple of months following the pandemic.
Bother products (Duo and Meet) have been successful in their own right. Duo still focuses on the general consumer, and in the last couple of months, it has been recording high numbers in terms of sign up, video and audio call times.
Meet was originally built for enterprise clients. It has since been rolled out for all people, and for free (to an extent). In fact, it is so easy to access Meet now, following its introduction in Gmail (on the web and smartphone apps).
The report further states that Google is now focusing on Meet, hence there is no need to have two video apps that are largely doing the same thing. This would mean that both enterprise and general customers will get the same attention from the teams.
It should also be remembered that Google’s other messaging app Hangouts will be discontinued in the near future. Of course, the search giant has too many of such apps, and maybe it is high time it started streamlining the video calling department in a world where tech giants are building products to offer a competitive advantage over Zoom.
