Google Workspace vs. G Suite - what's happened?! | G Suite, Google, Google Workspace and more | hellomedia Hello Media Blog Posts blog

Are you confused, overwhelmed, unsure about what’s happened to G Suite and what’s with Google Workspace? Is it even the same thing? What’s going on?!!!!!

As of October 2020, Google officially rebranded G Suite into Workspace – now let’s uncomplify (our own word – a mix of uncomplicate and simplify!!) it all for you!

We’ll explain what Google Workspace offers and how you can use it in your business and what to expect if you’re an existing G Suite customer. Let’s go!

Four years ago Google’s apps for work became G Suite which was a huge success for Google, with more than six million (and rising!) businesses using it!

However, as of October 2020, the G Suite brand is no more as Google officially announced that G Suite had become Google Workspace:

Google Workspace is giving us a more integrated way of using their products; Gmail, Google Sheets, Calendar, and Drive etc which will potentially boost productivity. According to Demystifying the desktop, an employee typically switches between 35 job-critical applications over 1,100 times a day and of course, over a year, that’s a lot of time your business is wasting …

These are some pretty interesting stats:

More than two-thirds of workers say they waste up to 60 minutes at work navigating between apps
68 percent of workers toggle between apps up to 10 times an hour.
Many workers get so frustrated they’d rather do household chores (53 percent) and pay bills (52 percent) than navigate between apps!

Source

By combining multiple apps (we feel your overwhelm!!!) a platform such as Google Workspace can save your business TIME. Plus, Google Workspace is focusing on remote teamwork and collaboration – awesome if like us, your team are all working remotely – anything that makes that better for us is a win!

On the working remotely front, interestingly both Google and Facebook have announced that they won’t be back into their office location until July 2021 (earliest), while Twitter, Square and Microsoft are all permanently giving their teams the option to work from home. This article has some great infographics showing people’s experiences of working remotely … (click here to read) and it tells us that 92% of employees now want the option to work from home which could explain Google’s motivation to reinvent its products as a remote working platform.

OK, so let’s talk about the transition …
If you have/had a G Suite subscription, then you’d have received an email from Google with what’s happening;

Following are the new Google Workspace logos/icons (top line is OLD bottom line is NEW!) As I talk about branding a lot, EVOLVING your brand is awesome – keeps it fresh and fabulous and modern!

What’s different in Google Workspace?

Google is combining multiple communication methods into a single interface with Workspace, and we’ll see Meet, Chat, and Rooms more tightly integrated with its other apps. Great news for those of you who are constantly switching between email, instant messaging, voice, and video calls.

In July 2020, Google announced it was rolling out Google Meet picture-in-picture to Gmail and Chat which enables you to see and hear the people you’re collaborating with – cool, huh?! PLUS, they’ve also announced the rolling out Google Meet’s picture-in-picture to Workspace’s Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Super cool – and a great addition for businesses using Workspace to collaborate remotely!

All the payment options have increased ~ $1/user/month from the original pricing for the Business Starter, and $2/user/month on the Business Standard plan and Google Workspace has introduced a new payment tier ~ the Workspace Business Plus plan which is priced at $18 USD per user per month. It includes enhanced security, more storage, and an increase in the maximum number of participants per meeting.

In summary, G Suite is now Google Workspace and the biggest change is that Google is combining its separate applications into a more unified UI with a renewed focus on remote teamwork.

Do you have any questions about the new Google Workspace platform? Keep an eye on our free weekly webinars for when we offer one of Google Workspace! PLUS join the Hello Media Facebook Group – you can ask questions in there any time!!!

G Suite | Google | Google Workspace