Google announces Team Drives & Drive File Stream for enterprise + AppBridge acquisition

Today as part of its Google Cloud Next ‘17 announcements, Google unveiled its latest Google Drive enhancements for enterprise customers, as well as announcing an acquisition of AppBridge.

Some of the new features and updated features Google announced today include Team Drives, Google Vault for Drive, Drive File Stream, and new Quick Access features powered by the company’s machine intelligence tech.

For the new Team Drives feature rolling out today, Google is aiming to make Drive better suited for companies with large teams by adding new features that make it particularly easy to add new members, stay on top of files as members leave, and simplify sharing permissions and admin controls.

And within Team Drives is another new feature called Quick Access (available first for iOS and Android and later for web users). It will predict your usage and attempt to surface the files you need intelligently, displaying them in an easy to access section at the top of your Drive.

Launching first in the Early Adopter Program, Drive File Stream is a new feature that lets you access your files from Drive by streaming them from the cloud to avoid using up local disk space.

As for the company’s announcement that it’s acquiring AppBridge today, Google notes in its blog post that the G Suite migration platform will soon offer an easier method of migrating files over from your existing platforms. “With AppBridge, your organization can migrate files effortlessly to G Suite from your existing file servers or content management systems like SharePoint, or from many other cloud platforms you might be using. File permissions are also brought over when you migrate, which means your team’s file access remains unchanged and your data stays safe.”

Lastly, Google Vault for Drive gets a few enhancements in today’s update:

The new Google Vault for Drive capabilities give admins the governance controls they need to manage and secure all their files, both in employee Drives as well as in Team Drives. These new features let admins set retention policies that automatically keep what they need and get rid of what they don’t. For example, you might need to place a legal hold on files that are critical to a certain legal case.

More on the Google blog.