Google hasn’t always had a strong presence in the enterprise market, and while you could likely find some small businesses and companies using Android devices for their work-related needs well before the platform started showing its enterprise chops, Android didn’t really start emphasizing the fact that it was a great solution for business until Android Lollipop. Before than, it just wasn’t business ready on a scale that it needed to be for competition against other solutions. Chrome OS was sort of in the same boat, but it’s had slightly more success breaking into the enterprise market and now remains one of the top solutions for education as well as with businesses, thanks to the offerings from Google Apps, which Google has now renamed to G Suite. Things are changing, and Google has plans to continue evolving the state of Android and Chrome OS as business solutions.
For the Android side of things, Google will be looking to simplify things by referencing Android for Work and Google Play for Work a little differently than their current name scheme. Specifically, Android for Work and Google Play for Work will no longer have the “for Work” terms at the end of the name, as both Android and Google Play’s Enterprise-focused functions are now essentially just part of their respective ecosystems, so, there’s no need to split them off in a sense by terming them differently. Given how developed both sections of Android are these days, it makes sense that simplification would be a good step forward in making Android as a whole a bigger force in Enterprise, and alongside making things more simple, it streamlines things a bit.
This is according to Rajen Sheth, the man at Google who has been behind the beginning of both Google Apps and Chrome OS’ launch, and recently spoke with Computer World about Google’s efforts going forward in the Enterprise space. For Chrome OS and essentially, Chromebooks, they remain affordable options compared to computers that utilize other platforms, and thus have been able to continue growing a presence in Enterprise and Education. The viable nature of Chrome OS as a formidable and Enterprise-ready operating system is only going to get that much stronger, too, when you consider that Google has been ramping up their efforts to roll out Google Play and Android app access for the Chrome OS platform, which will open up a wide array of functions for businesses once the access is available on the stable channel, and ultimately make for a nice, well-rounded tool set for those businesses which also use Android for their mobile device platform.