I’ve read that Google has plans for multi-user video conferencing amidst their ensemble of updates unveiled for Google Apps.

Users can expect to see improvements for Gmail’s Chat function, for both voice and video capabilities. Currently Gmail Chat is limited to one-to-one interaction, but with these updates, online group collaboration will be a lot more feasible.

SFGate reports,

“This [current Gmail capability] is the first step in a much broader set of features we hope to roll out over the next six to 12 months around video [and voice] chat capabilities,” said Rishi Chandra, a Google Apps product manager. “It’s a great opportunity for us to push that space along.”

SFGate continues to add that this Chat enhancement would not be a separate application to the Google Apps suite, which is a relief as I’m all for a minimalist style; with everything integrated into one, the less number of windows, the better.

Disappointingly, there were no details further mentioned; it is unclear if the Web and video conferencing software Google has acquired from Swedish company Marratech in 2007 would be integrated into Google Apps suite.

All in all, I believe these enhancements would prove to be more than beneficial for businesses as video conferencing gains popularity. If companies infuse face-to-face techno-communication into their culture, they can cut costs on traveling expenses and other collaborative tools, whether internally or otherwise.

Other upcoming features like “Intelligent meeting scheduling in Google Calendar”, “Improvements to the docs application [with] new functionality being developed especially around formatting” and collaborative enhancements for Google Docs and Spreadsheets have been mentioned.

All we can do now is to keep an eye on Google Apps blog, to see what going Google entails.