Overview
Pie began as a startup building a team chat application. The company was recently acquired by Google with the aim of forming an engineering group focused on Southeast Asia. The founding team resembles the engineers behind Slack: a group of communication specialists brought together to help establish Google’s presence in Singapore.
Who the team is
- A core group of communications engineers with experience in real-time collaboration tools.
- Staffed to jump-start Google’s engineering efforts in the region, rather than to continue independent product development.
About the chat product
The app was built to enable team conversations without relying on email. Functionally it shares similarities with existing messaging platforms (for example, some Skype features), but the Pie product was intentionally designed to exclude any email integration. The developers deliberately removed email from the workflow so teams could communicate entirely within the chat environment.
Current status and availability
The project is currently paused. Although a trial version of the chat app was once available, active development has been halted because the original engineers were reassigned to Google projects aimed at Southeast Asia. As a result, the original team will not be maintaining or updating the software going forward.
Alternatives and next steps
- Consider established collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams or Slack for ongoing, supported chat functionality.
- Explore Google’s own communication offerings, which the engineers are now contributing to, for solutions targeted at regional markets.
- For ancillary needs like marketing or analytics, tools such as SEMrush offer free trials and may help support rollout and growth efforts.
Technical
- Web App
- Free