Google not working on apps for Microsoft mobile platforms

One of Google’s product managers has said the company isn’t planning to put development time into bringing any of its apps to Microsoft’s ecosystem.

Google product management director, Clay Bavor, told V3 it saw insufficient interest in Microsoft’s platforms to justify the development investment.

‘We have no plans to build out Windows apps,’ he said, ‘We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8.’

However, Bavor did add that Google would likely fall in line if it saw a popular shift towards Windows. In the meantime, Google will focus its efforts on its own Android ecosystem and in bringing its services to the large group of users on iOS.

This is a big problem for Microsoft. Although there’s a lot to like about the Windows-maker’s own synchronised services it’s also understandable that many people are now well-entrenched in the Google Apps suite and won’t be ready to abandon it.

Certainly on other platforms it’s quite normal to use Google Apps alongside other similar suites, but for many Google’s have now become central, including Google Drive, Google Talk and Google Reader.

Of course, some of Google’s services will still be accessible in a more limited fashion via a web browser, but it’s also true that this isn’t really the same.

We do wonder, however, whether Microsoft might be able to help itself out of this situation – clearly on some level the big M has been cooperating with the big G, because if you look on the Windows Phone Store there’s an official YouTube app with the developer listed as Microsoft. Likewise Gmail support is built into the Windows platforms, although there’s no dedicated app.

Perhaps Microsoft is going to have to do all of the work?