Google is known to have a confusing messaging strategy. Too many offerings doing similar if not the exact same thing. Someone needs to fix that
It seems that Google finally acknowledges that fact, as it is putting Javier Soltero, the VP and GM of G Suite, in charge of all of Google's various messaging apps under a single "unified team."
With Google saying that Soltero is in charge of "all of Google's collective communication products," things should be at least be simplified.
According to Google in a statement:
"Javier will remain in Cloud, but will also join the leadership team under Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP of Platforms and Ecosystems. Outside of this update, there are no other changes to the personnel and Hiroshi will continue to play a significant role in our ongoing partnership efforts."
Javier Soltero was known to have experienced a long career, and that included an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Redpoint Ventures, the co-founder and CEO of Acompli, and the Corporate Vice President advisor to Rajesh Jha at Microsoft.
That was after the Redmond-based company acquired Acompli in 2014 for $200 million and turned it into the Outlook mobile app.
After joining Google in October of 2019. Soltero career moved rapidly.
During his moments, he cleaned up some of the branding messes Google has done with the Hangouts, converting Hangouts Video to Google Meet and Hangouts Chat to Google Chat.
Soltero was also the person behind the idea of making Google Meet a free product for everyone, far ahead of the original schedule because of the 'COVID-19' coronavirus pandemic.
This time, Google is putting Soltero in charge of the Google messaging team and its strategy. The move by the company should see all of Google's major communication products under one umbrella.
What this means, apps like Google Hangouts, Google Meet, Google Chat, Google Messages, Google Duo, and Google Voice, should go under one umbrella, under one team's control.
Soltero once said that:
"[Users are telling me] ‘I’m everywhere, I fit into all of those buckets, can you just kind of make my life easier and better?’ And the answer is yes, that is the purpose of bringing these things together."
With him in charge, Soltero said that there are no immediate plans to change or integrate any of Google’s messaging apps.
"We believe people make choices around the products that they use for specific purposes,” he said.
This suggests that Soltero has no plan to integrate Google's varieties of chat apps in the way Facebook is planning with Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. at least yet.
He said that "these products are playing an important role in people’s lives" and "it would be irresponsible” to make too-rapid changes to these products as people depend on them.
“The issue that people tend to have is their ability to see across [these apps] and see themselves as a Duo user and a Meet user and a Gmail user and so forth,” Soltero stated. He added that bringing the apps together under one management can help make users’ lives easier.
But still, Google’s many communications apps need a more coherent and opinionated production development, and Soltero is here to address that very problem.
As the all-powerful "Head of Messaging", Soltero is like re-re-re-rebooting something Google has done in the past.
"The plan continues to be to modernize [Hangouts] towards Google Meet and Google Chat," he said.