Google Hangouts Chat and Google Hangouts Meet are used by small, medium and large businesses across the globe. And they are made by Google, so these are credible productivity tools that we trust and turn to by instinct. Initial murmurings online suggested that Google was shutting down Google Hangouts by 2020. This would cause not just a huge ripple in the industry, but also with their customer base. Whilst Hangouts is primarily a consumer tool, business adoption due to sheer popularity is relatively high.
Google cutting products
Google are no strangers to shutting down consumer products. Google Plus didn't see the expected adoption, and the plug has been pulled. Google Glass, whilst not formally shutdown, is going through a period of slow uptake and the roadmap is either unpublished or undecided. Google also launched and promptly halted progress on Allo - a smart way to respond to messages with your voice.
Neither Google Plus, Google Glass or Allo significantly impacted many businesses, if any at all. Google Hangouts, on the other hand, has been popular with firms that require global presence in their chat and meetings solutions. When looking for some clear guidance as to whether the suggestion of complete, and rather radical, shutdown were true, natural gravitation was to the Hangouts blog. Whilst the posts here were irregular anyway, there hadn't been a post since July. All of a sudden, this felt a little more real. Heading to the Google Play Store, however, Hangouts will still an option to download.
Hangouts was launched as a replacement for Gchat in 2013. Since inception, the business grade versions have seen more rapid adoption. Hence, the original Hangouts product has been losing features and the last update was quite some time ago.
