Google’s new version of Hangouts looks a lot like Slack - Recode

Or, as Charles Fitzgerald put it, "In other news, strike Google from list of possible Slack acquirers." Also see Google goes after Slack and splits Hangouts into Chat and Meet (TechCrunch)

"Hangout Chat is part of Google’s newest push to sell its office tools to big businesses as part of its bigger aim to take on Microsoft Office. Verizon recently switched from Office to G Suite.

And the update to Hangout Chat appears to be designed to compete with Slack. The feature will be available to G Suite customers who apply for access. The new app allows users to create virtual rooms (much like on Slack) where they can hold group conversations, and to break conversations off into threads.

Chat also includes a new bot for automatically scheduling meetings: When called up, @meet will compare Google Calendar schedules of chat participants to automatically pick an open time."

Google’s new version of Hangouts looks a lot like Slack - Recode