As earlier mentioned, Google Hangouts will soon retire and a recent announcement finally reveals the details of the transition that is starting in October.
Through a blog post, Google explained that it will start to put to rest the classic Hangouts, at least for G Suite users, nine months from now. This means that users will be transitioned to Chat by then, but for other details, the company advised to wait for updates through its blog.
For Hangouts Consumers
As for others who use Hangouts, fret not. No switching will be made until such time G Suite users are pretty much comfy with the new apps. Or if speculations are concerned, this won't likely happen till 2020.
Although G Suite users have many more months in front of them before they get to officially be headed to the new Hangouts Chat and Meet, there are already changes that the company will make starting in three months.
From April to September, Google said it will start bringing some Hangouts features to Chat, such as Gmail integration, talking with external users, better video calling, and calls with Google Voice. This being the case, the company said that users can migrate to the new platform immediately if they prefer to.
Hangouts Chat And Meet
Looking back, it was in 2017 when Google announced that they were expanding Hangouts into two services, the Chat and Meet. The former is a messaging avenue like Slack and the latter, a video conference service, whose goal is to "make joining meetings effortless so that people can be as productive as they are when they're face-to-face."
Meanwhile, this isn't the first time that Google kills one of its services. Allo, which was touted as an app to compete against big rival Apple's iMessage, is the latest that will see the sunset by March as announced early December.
