How Google's giant APP splits into multiple small APPs

Google's office dream

Google recently split the functionality of Google Drive into two, launching two new apps for the Apple App Store and Google Play Store: Google Docs and Google Sheets.

Google Docs is a word processing software with similar functions to the well-known Word, while Google Sheets is equivalent to Microsoft Excel. Both apps allow users to use Google's cloud storage service Google Drive to store office documents.

Microsoft Office Expansion

As Microsoft lags behind the leading iOS and Android platforms in mobile operating systems, Microsoft's office software is also released on the iPad platform in the form of three independent applications. They are Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

PK between the two

In terms of platform, Microsoft's Work and Excel only have iPad versions, while Google Docs and Google Sheets are compatible with iPhone and iPad; in addition, although both office apps can be downloaded for free, the iPad version of Microsoft's office software only opens all functions to Office365 subscribers, while Google's is completely free.

Data speaks

According to download data monitored by Distimo, Microsoft Office software is far ahead of Google in Apple App Store downloads. Word is 181% more downloaded than Google Docs

Four days after its release, Excel also led Google Sheets by 231%.

Compared with Google's own software, Docs is more popular than Sheets, which is also related to the fact that word processing software is more popular than Excel for digital processing.

Implications

Splitting the functions of a large APP into small APPs: Splitting the functions of an APP into multiple independent APPs is the strategy currently being implemented by Facebook and Foursquare. Google is also following the trend and occupying the user entrance through multiple APPs.

Separating a giant, fully-featured APP into multiple independent APPs has strategic significance: 1. It is convenient for users to distinguish and helps to strengthen the user's product and brand positioning; 2. Being closer to users helps to improve the experience of heavy users

Take Tencent's QQ Space as an example. QQ Space has both a version integrated with Mobile QQ and a separate QQ Space version. The Mobile QQ integrated version helps it cover a wider range of light users, while the Qone independent version provides better positioning for heavy users.

The QQ call function recently launched by QQ Mobile is integrated with QQ Mobile and has not been launched separately. Perhaps it will have greater room for growth if it is launched separately. What do you think?

via: 199IT analysis, figures from distimo