Google says it is shelving a number of products in a bid to rationalise its offerings. The Internet giant says it will axe Wave, Knol, Search Timeline and Google Gears, along with a slew of other features in order to build fewer products with more integrated features.
Google says it is shelving a number of products in a bid to rationalise its offerings. The Internet giant says it will axe Wave, Knol, Search Timeline and Google Gears, along with a slew of other features in order to build fewer products with more integrated features.
It said the products did not take off for Google as originally anticipated, so it is letting them die out, leaving room for what it sees as more important projects such as social networking site Google+.
The decision on Wave – invented by a team led by former Google Australia developer Lars Rasmussen – has perplexed some observers: Google originally announced its dumping more than a year ago (CDN, Aug 8, 2010), leading to Rasmussen leaving the company.
Wave was supposed to revolutionise the way people communicated online, letting them exchange messages and jointly edit documents. But the product was complex and confusing to most users – and to some Google execs – leading to the decision to dump it.
