Google's Springboard is like Google Now for the enterprise
That sure seems like the inspiration for Google Springboard, an integrated search and digital assistant the company announced on its Google for Work blog. Springboard will be able to search across Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive, Contacts, and other data stored in your enterprise Google account.
But the similarity to Google Now is apparent in how vice president of engineering Prabhakar Raghavan says Springboard, “assists you throughout your workday by proactively providing useful and actionable information and recommendations.”
The other big reveal is a long overdue revamp to Google Sites.
This service is popular in education and for company use with internal pages since it’s pretty simple to throw a site together. But the tools lag behind other do-it-yourself sites like Squarespace and Weebly, so it’s a much needed overhaul.
All the new tools are currently to be found in Google’s Early Adopter Program. If you’re the admin of a company’s Google Apps for Work, you can opt in to try out Springboard and Google Sites.
The story behind the story: Much of the focus of Google’s announcements at I/O this year was about the company’s work in machine intelligence. It’s now putting some of that to use with its enterprise applications, which could give it a leg up over Microsoft as the companies battle to be the go-to productivity provider for small and large businesses.