Meet the new Google Workspace (Formerly Known as G Suite)

2020 has been a year of huge overhauls for Google and its applications. It started with Google Chat and Google Meet’s rebranding and enhancements. Then later in the second semester, Google united Gmail, Chat, and Meet on a new home for work that integrates everything a team needs to be productive and manage their workflows.

Now G Suite has a new name: Google Workspace. And it is not just the name that’s changed: they took the collaboration and integration between the tools to a whole new level.

In this article, you are going to find out everything you need to know about the new Google Workspace: the improvements, the transition, and how to use it at its full potential to help you run your workflow.

What is Google Workspace

Google’s business platform once was called Google Apps, then it changed to Google Apps For Business, to become Google Apps For Work after a while. Later in 2016, its name changed to G Suite, to four years later become the new Google Workspace.

Besides changing names, Google has been improving this collaborative suite as the years go by. But lately, they are reinforcing the concept of having everything teams need in just one place, to improve the user experience within the platform. That’s why the apps are each day more connected, working all together to improve how businesses run their workflows.

This business platform includes the following main apps:

• Gmail
• Chat
• Meet
• Calendar
• Drive
• Docs
• Sheets
• Slides

In this overhaul, Google brought some great changes that we will explore further on the next topics.

Interface integrations

The Home for Work update brought Chat, Meet, and Docs to Gmail, as a new place for teams to work without the need of leaving their inboxes. If you don’t know what we are talking about, it’s highly recommended that you check the changes that went live on the September 2020 update:

With Google Workspace, this integration between the apps becomes even more connected and useful. Firstly, the option of opening and editing documents right in your email inbox, with just a click of the button. The screen will divide into two tabs: File and Chat.

Now it’s possible to preview any linked file in Docs, Sheets, and Slides,  without needing to open a new tab and work on it. Just click the link, and a popup preview will appear right on the bottom-right corner of the page. With this resource, you will be able to eliminate the time spent on context switching, improving your productivity.

Moreover, when you @mention someone in a document, a card will appear with all the contact details, even for people that don’t belong to your organization. With this feature, you can give more context to your projects, and make it clear for all the collaborators some specific details about someone.

And the last big interface update is Google Meet picture-in-picture to Gmail and Chat. So while you are working on a document, the window with your colleagues’ video meeting will be hovering the page. This way you can collaborate and communicate with the team seamlessly.

New prices and storage

With G Suite, businesses had unlimited storage on Google Drive. But these days are gone with Google Workspace, which provides unlimited storage only on the Enterprise plan.

Another thing important to notice is that before the overhaul, there were only three plans: Basic, Business, and Enterprise. So a quick comparison with the new pricing:

• The Business Basic plan is $6/user/month, the same price as the former Basic plan;
• The former Business plan is now called Business Standard, and still costs $12/user/month;
• Now there is the new Business Plus plan, costing $18/user/month;
• The Enterprise plan that once cost $25/user/month, but now is a negotiable plan that requires contacting Google Workspace’s sales team;

Small companies and startups can benefit a lot from the Business Starter plan, but it’s necessary for those who need larger storage to upgrade to the Business Standard. On the other hand, the Business Plus and the Enterprise plans are a great fit for big companies.

Notice that for existing G Suite customers, Google is giving support and time so they can make the transition for any of the new plans.

Brand Identity

Google has kept the same colors on its apps logos throughout the years as its branding. But as you can see in the comparison above, some apps had their own particular design, sometimes using just one of the 4 main colors, like Gmail and the Office apps.

But now, with Workspace, they set a new brand identity to reflect even more how the apps work together. All the logos have a mix of red, blue, green, and yellow. Also, the way that the colors overlap on them can easily portray the connection all the apps have and the collaboration and communication aspects they provide.

Wrapping up

As you could see, Google Workspace came with some profound changes that will certainly make a difference in how businesses run their workflows.

If you are a former G Suite user, you can rest assured the new enhancements totally worth it to make the transition for the Workspace. All the changes are easy to understand and use, so you won’t spend time learning how to use it.

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