After years a long battle looks like Google has finally decided to concede to the likes of Facebook Messenger and Apple iMessage and is shutting down its own messaging service Allo. In their official blog post, Google said Allo will “continue to work through March 2019,”
The move is not entirely surprising as Allo never gained the traction Google had hoped for despite having great features. Users have until March 2019 to back up their conversations.
Google says that they will focus more on their Messages app. In their official post, Google said “We’re … ready to take what we’ve learned from Allo and put it to work to make Messages even better,” Google hopes that its investments in RCS chat might be the answer to the titans of messaging monopolies even though RCS chat is more dependent on carriers than Google.
Google Duo will continue to function as it functioning right now. In fact, Google says that they will continue to improve Google Duo in the future by using their expertise in machine learning.
Google also talked about their vision with Google Hangouts. Hangouts will be their forward foot in the enterprise industry. Earlier in March, they announced plans to revamp Hangouts and branch them into Hangouts chat and Hangouts video. The idea is to make a competitor to services like slack and Skype. Finally, Google said, “And by refocusing on Messages and Duo for consumers and Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet for team collaboration, we’re focused on delivering a simpler and more unified communications experience for all of you.”
