Google has decided to integrate a few in-demand features with its Gmail platform. This will enable users to edit documents and other files without leaving the email service. The new feature will first be available to G Suite users as an early access preview in the coming week and will be rolled out to others later this year.
This new move will allow the tech giant to catch up with the other popular options like Microsoft Office which has an array of tools integrated and built for the global market for corporate email and document editing.
Google made the new change public at the company’s cloud unit's annual customer and partner conference, which has been turned into a virtual gathering spanning over several weeks because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
With the surge of work from home trend both Google and other tech companies have been trying to woo customers with changes in their popular applications, making them more friendly to work with at a home setting.
With the new change, Google is projecting Gmail as a single hub for workers to access text chats, video calls and now documents.
Comparing the new step taken by the company to its popular rival Microsoft, Javier Soltero, a Google vice president who used to work for Microsoft, said "Microsoft is still telling you there's two separate places to check, two different habits, two inboxes to look at."
"They are not incentivized to do a deep integration between Teams and Outlook," Soltero added. He claimed consumers using the free version of Gmail may have access to the new integrations in the future.
