Google's project Duet plans to integrate Duo into Meet and gradually phase it out

Amid Coronavirus times when the world has gone digital with the use of video conferencing platforms for activities ranging from consultations and meetings to keeping in touch with friends and relatives across the globe, Google is planning on phasing out its 'Duo' platform to make way for more comprehensive platform 'Meet'.

While Google Duo is a video calling service, Meet has become an extensive video conferencing platform with more features and capacity to have more people on the conference. Reports state that Google would integrate the features of Duo into Meet.

Both the apps have shown a colossal increase in their userbase amid the COVID-19 pandemic, however, according to reports, Meet surpassed Duo with 3 million new user signups daily as compared the latter's 10 million sign up in weekly.

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This decision by Google seemingly comes as Google Meet is emerging as one of the top competitors to Zoom and according to 9to5Google, Google's G Suite head Javier Soltero wants its Meet app to be one single platform under the Google umbrella to be used at the individual level as well as enterprises. He opined that having two platforms doing a similar job 'doesn't make sense'. Apparently, the project of integrating the two apps is named as 'Duet', a portmanteau of the names Duo and Meet.

Google is planning to bring several key features from Duo over to Meet to enhance the capabilities of the app after which Duo will gradually phase-out. However, the transition doesn't seem to happen anytime soon. It may take up to two years for the integration as Google does not plan on altering the current usage of Duo immediately.

The Zoom video conferencing platform had become an overnight sensation in the February-March period when several nations had decided to impose lockdown in their respective countries while enterprises and people had resorted to the concept of work from home. But Google Meet over a period of time has risen to become a tough contender to Zoom.

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