Google has rebranded its unified communications and collaboration platform Google Hangouts Meet to just Google Meet as it expands free access to advanced features until Sept. 30.
The company announced last month its Google meet videoconferencing services would be available at no cost to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers. That is ow expanded until the end of September, wrote G Suite General Manager and Vice President Javier Soltero in a blog post.
Soltero wrote the company is surpassing new milestones as remote workers and students flock to communication platforms due to COVID-19 restrictions. Earlier this week, the company reprotd more than 2 million new users on Google Meet and more than 2 billion minutes on the platform.
However, the company quietly rebranded the services, ditching the “Hangouts” title via a separate blog post by two G Suite and Google Meet directors, Karthik Lakshminarayanan and Smita Hashim.
That post included information about new features to block meeting hijacking attempts and other features to help keep education meetings safe and effective.
According to The Verge, Google confirmed the rebrand in an email and that Meet is an independent part of G Suite, Google’s portfolio of business platforms including Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Drive.
The rebrand still appears to be a work in progress. As of this writing, the service is still called Hangouts Meet by Google in the iOS App Store, and its G Suite landing page also retains the old name. And while G Suite’s website lists “Meet” as an included service at the top of the page, “Hangouts Meet” is still referenced in a list lower down.
Hangouts Chat, the chat app part of Hangouts, is also part of G Suite, according to The Verge.
Per 9 to 5 Google, Google Cloud CEO Sundar Pichai has been referring to the service as just meet, and there is other evidence that Hangouts Chat will follow a similar rebrand.
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