As in every field, digitalization in business life is showing itself at a great pace. Especially thanks to digital business tools, workplaces and institutions can save both manpower and expenses and perform their work much more efficiently. At the top of these digital tools is Google Workspace. Google Workspace, which runs entirely on the Cloud, is a collection of computing, collaboration, and products. This set of products enables teamwork, enables the possibility to work on a large-scale project, and enables the entire business process to be carried out in a digital way. This tool, which is also widely used in our country, changes the way of doing business and the characteristics of institutions in our country in general. If you want to have more detailed information about the impact of Google Workspace on business life in our country, you can continue reading our article.
Google Workspace and Its Brief History
Launched in 2006, the Google Workspace project quickly became the most widely used digital business tool. Today, there is a success story behind the platform with over 6 million paid users. Let’s take a look at how Google Workspace has evolved over the past two decades.
First Prototype (2006)
2006 was the year the first prototype of Google Workspace was born. Google has offered users a number of free tools under the name Google Apps for Your Domain . These tools included Gmail and Calendar, which we all widely use. In addition, the Page Creator, which will change its name in the future, and the Talk applications, which will be combined with a different application, were also included in this first prototype. In the same year, Google continued to take steady steps towards becoming the largest company in the virtual world by buying YouTube for $ 1.5 billion. In October 2006, Google Docs was born.
Google Apps Showcases (2007-2008)
In 2007, Google introduced a paid platform called Google Apps Premier. This platform offered users extra storage space and dedicated APIs for businesses. Besides this paid platform, in 2007, Google released the first full version of the Docs application, released a PowerPoint alternative called Presentation, and developed an Excel alternative called Spreadsheets.
In 2008, the Page Creator application was removed and replaced by Google Sites. This app was a more advanced version of Page Creator, as well as had more functional features that businesses could use.
Full Version Releases and Free Features Decrease (2009-2011)
The first full version of Google Apps was announced in 2009 and released the Marketplace Edition in March 2010. In July 2010, the Government Edition was released and became the first cloud-based application to receive Federal Information Security Management Act certification. In the following period, companies’ access to free features was restricted.
New Applications and Renewal Process (2012-2015)
Google launched Google Drive in April 2012 in response to Microsoft’s OneDrive tool, its biggest competitor in the business tools space. Initially, users had 5GB of storage and could purchase additional storage for a fee. Later, it was integrated into Google Drive, Gmail, and G Drive apps. In 2015, Google announced that they would form a holding company called Alphabet; With this announcement, Google Apps has also entered a renewal process.
G Suite Term (2016–present)
In 2016, Google Apps was renamed G Suite and rebranded. That same year, a new version of Google Sites came out. In 2017, Google Meet was launched; Google’s Hangouts application, which has been offered to users for a long time, has also been withdrawn from the market. In 2020, G Suite changed its name and Google Workspace was born. In the following period, Google continued to work on artificial intelligence. Today, Google Workspace is among the most widely used digital tools in business.
Google Workspace in Global Business
As we mentioned above, Google Workspace is known as the world’s largest collection of digital business tools with over 6 million paid users today. Google Workspace, which is the number one choice of companies around the world thanks to the dozens of applications it offers, is preferred by individual users as well as large companies.
Google Workspace’s Impact on Business in Turkey
As a country where digitalization is at the forefront in every field from government institutions to daily life, it is not surprising that Google Workspace has such widespread use in Turkey. The use of Google Workspace in our country greatly affects our business life and transforms the way we do business and institutions. If we need to list this transformation in a few items:
- Increase in electronic services: One of the biggest transformations that Google Workspace has created in our country is the increase in electronic services. The fact that most organizations and businesses are moving to a more efficient way of doing business with Google Workspace is also digitalizing the services offered by these institutions.
- Digital-oriented working style: In our country where digitalization is actively taking place; With the proliferation of Google Workspace, enterprises and businesses are shifting to a more digitally focused way of working to increase productivity.
- Versatile work: The ability to easily access multiple tools, especially thanks to Google Workspace, makes multifaceted work have a greater place in the way of doing business in our country. This situation leads to the necessity for employees to be open to perform more than one job actively.
