It is not a new thing for Google to shut down its services & products. They have previously terminated a couple of services. This time, they are going to cut down some of their other services which were mostly used by small businesses and educational entities. Although officials from Google are saying that this initiative has been taken only to ensure more focus on the high-end and more productive services, only time can tell whether it will be a good thing for the users or not.
The search engine giant, Google has numerous services and it is the undisputed leader in the field of research and development. They have been working on a number of projects and services simultaneously where many of their services didn’t reach up to the expectation level as anticipated. This is why; Google had to cut down more than 50 programs in the past through closure, merger or giveaways. This time, Google is planning to close Google Apps for Teams, Google Listen and many other important services. Though Google is taking this as a positive plan, the majority of the users have a different view on this.
It is mostly the users from business domains, schools and colleges who use Google Apps for Teams that will be closed on September 12, 2012. Following that, Google Listen, a service for the podcasters will also cease on November 2012 as Google found it redundant and obsolete to other podcasting apps available in the market. In addition to that, Google will also shut down its Google Video for Business which allowed people to use videos for internal communication. Although there will be an alternative named Google Drive that will replace this service, it will never be the same again for the existing users. Even after that, the axe of Google doesn’t stop just here. They are also planning to shut down a number of their service blogs which are not updated on a regular basis.
Obviously, such shut downs are not welcomed by the users and the blogs are pouring with complains and appeal to stop this. But Google is confident to proceed with its plan as they are confident that they will be able provide better services to their users in the long run.
