Google unifies consumer, enterprise messaging teams, to be led by G Suite chief Javier Soltero

There are no plans to merge the products any time soon

Soltero and his team is now leading Google Duo, Android’s Phone dialer, RCS Messages client, Google Chat, Google Meet and Google Voice. (Bloomberg)

So far, Google's messaging services have been split between consumer and enterprise. The enterprise offerings have witnessed a whole bunch of changes lately including a rebranding and expansion of availability. The differences between consumer and enterprise messaging services from Google have gradually been diminishing and the company has unified both the teams now and placed them under the leadership of G Suite head Javier Soltero.

Soltero and his team is now leading Google Duo, Android's Phone dialer, RCS Messages client, Google Chat, Google Meet and Google Voice. The G Suite head joined Google Cloud last October, he was working with Microsoft before that. In the past couple of weeks, he did away with the Hangouts brand to turn Google's Work Offerings into Google Chat and Google Meet.

A more significant change was Meet being made free for all users with Google accounts to handle the surge of video calls over the Covid-19 pandemic.

As far as management is concerned, Soltero is still a part of Cloud, leading Gmail, Drive, Docs, "and the rest of the company's productivity offerings as it tries to get more paid customers from both upstarts and established competitors". However, he is now joining Hiroshi Lockheimer's leadership team.

In a statement, Google explained the new organisational structure:

"We are bringing all of Google's collective communication products together under one leader and unified team that will be led by Javier Soltero, VP and GM of G Suite. Javier will remain in Cloud, but will also join the leadership team under Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP of Platforms and Ecosystems. Outside of this update, there are no other changes to the personnel and Hiroshi will continue to play a significant role in our ongoing partnership efforts."

Soltero told Verge that there are no immediate plans to unify the products and Lockheimer shares a similar sentiment about how it is necessary to have different products for different tasks. Lockheimer leads Android, Play, Chrome/OS and Photos.