Google’s Fall Spring-Cleaning

Don’t fear change.  Embrace it.  Google has just announce they’re going to be shutting down or rolling-up a number of their products over the next few months as part of a spring-er-fall cleaning.  

In a blog post from August, Google announced some major changes to some minor products.  Here’s a quick overview of what they’re up to.

Google Desktop – Discontinued 9.14.11

Since there has been a huge shift from local to cloud-based storage and computing, which was the goal of Google Desktop, the product will be discontinued on September 14th, including all the associated APIs, services, plugins, gadgets and support.  See you all on the CloudDrive!

Google Maps API for Flash – Limping Along

The Google Maps API for Flash was launched to provide ActionScript developers a way to integrate Google Maps into their applications. Although they’re deprecating the API, support will continue for existing Google Maps API Premier customers as Google focues their attention on the JavaScript Maps API v3 going forward.

Google Pack – Closed 09.02.11

Due to the rapidly decreasing demand for downloadable software in favor of web apps, Google Pack will be discontinued on Sept. 2nd.  People will still be able to access Google’s software quickly and easily through direct links on the Google Pack website.

Google Sidewiki – Closing 12.15.11

Over the past few years,  the web has become very collaborative. Since that was the goal with Sidewiki, they’ve decided to discontinue it and focus instead on broader social initiatives. Sidewiki authors have just two months to download their content.

Google explains their decisions with an overly optimistic and generic tone:

We’ve never been afraid to try big, bold things, and that won’t change. We’ll continue to take risks on interesting new technologies with a lot of potential. But by targeting our resources more effectively, we can focus on building world-changing products with a truly beautiful user experience.