Hanging Together: Google Hangouts Meet Works with Many Conference Systems

Google rolls out updates for Hangouts Meet

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Published: June 25, 2018

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

Who doesn’t love a collaboration service that plays well with others? At the beginning of June, Google announced that they’d be launching a range of updates to their G Suite service, making their productivity suite much more accessible for those who already have third-party tools in their communication network.

In a world where hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, and other unique environments are becoming more popular for companies of all shapes and sizes, the search giant has clearly embraced the importance of interoperability. After all, according to one study, some employees use as much as 36 cloud services in an average day at work.

Anyone Can Hang Out with Google

While Google introduced a series of updates to G Suite this month, perhaps the most exciting was to the Hangouts “Meet” service, which is the enterprise versions of Google’s popular tool for video chat. From now on, whether you’re using Skype for business, Cisco, Polycom, or anything else, you can join a Meet call as a fully-featured participant.

The third-party integration options come from a recent partnership with Pexip– a platform designed to bridge the gaps between video and audio technologies from different environments. This means that if you’re on your Skype app and you want to move to a Google Hangouts Meeting, you don’t have to switch to a new app. For Google, this seems like a great opportunity to solve some of the productivity hurdles that modern companies are facing.

In a recent blog post, the company noted that they’re constantly looking for ways to make their system simpler for businesses to use. It’s not just people on different apps that can join meetings either. Google also noted that you’ll soon be able to invite people from outside your organisation to join conferences too.

Bridging the Gaps in Communications

Google Hangouts MeetAs businesses search for more “unified” UC platforms, Google’s updates to the G Suite could be a powerful step forward. The brand also noted that they will be supporting third-party video conferencing tools on the Google Calendar app too. This essentially means that when you set up a meeting on Google calendar, you’re not restricted to the technology you need to use to bring that meeting to life. Anyone from Cisco, to Zoom or BlueJeans, could create an add-on to work with calendar, to give their customers more accessibility.

Google notes that they’ll be bringing various third-party conferencing add-ons into their marketplace, including those for Vidyo, Dialpad, LogMeIn, Cisco Webex, Arkadin, RingCentral, and many more. Google will also be delivering SAP interoperability into G Suite so that you can import ERP content more easily.

Simplifying Collaboration at All Levels

By developing a stronger foundation of interoperability, Google is finally giving companies a chance to design their own communication and collaboration strategy – free from unwanted lock-in. You can book resources like Rooms and Equipment directly from G Suite, and open collaboration meetings from Slack, Microsoft Skype for Business, or anywhere else you choose.

 

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