Google has so far had a love-hate relationship with messaging services, as it threw several of them against the wall, but only a few stuck, and that too not for long. But this didn’t deter the company from renewing its efforts to make another attempt, this time for businesses. A report by The Information suggests that Google could unify its existing communication services into a workplace-oriented app to stand against Slack and Microsoft Teams.

The current solutions available for communicating with your colleagues include Gmail and two Hangouts apps—one each for messaging and video conferencing. The fragmented package falls flat against the likes of Slack that offers a unified app with better third-party integrations. Eyeing for the “unified” part, Google is expected to consolidate the three apps into one and throw Drive into the mix to allow easier, and presumably faster, file sharing within the team. When ready, the mobile app will be offered as a part of G Suite.

While Google is busy sorting out its various messaging services to combat the growing popularity of Microsoft Teams, we still hope it soon turns its attention to adding a proper graphics editor to its business-facing suite. Microsoft is also separately previewing an all-in-one Office app, which similarly combines its popular productivity apps (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and others) into one.

Source: The Information (paywall)